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II 


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am 

rani 


LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


Purchased  by  the  Hamill  Missionary  Fund. 


BV  4523  .H32  1911 

Hackett,  Wilfred  S. 

The  land  of  your  sojournings 


The  Land  of  Your 
Sojournings    f 


Studies  in  Christian  Experience 


By/ 
WILFRED  S.  HACKETT 


4&MIML  S 


New     York  Chicago  Toronto 

Fleming     H.     Revell      Company 

London  and  Edinburgh 


PREFATORY   NOTE 

Of  all  things  in  the  world,  a  sermon  ought  to 
speak  for  itself  without  any  preface,  and  yet  when 
a  small  collection  of  addresses  is  put  forward  a 
word  may  be  permitted  on  their  connexion  and 
interdependence. 

I  have  tried  to  touch  (though  the  touch  be  of  the 
slightest)  upon  the  great  themes  of  the  Faith — the 
merciful  majesty  of  God  the  Father,  the  work  of 
Christ  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  our  response  to 
that  work  in  various  phases  of  Christian  experience. 
The  meditations  never  wander  far  from  that  most 
fruitful  topic,  the  mystery  of  divine  and  human  co- 
operation, according  to  which  we  work  out  our  own 
salvation,  while  all  the  time  it  is  God  who  worketh 
in  us  both  our  willing  and  our  doing  of  His  good 
pleasure.  Trying  and  trusting  are  the  believer's 
life-occupation,  and  to  inspire  the  one  and  encourage 
the  other  must  be  a  preacher's  best  desire. 

Wilfred  S.  Hackett. 

Halifax,  1911. 


CONTENTS 


ii 


in 


IV 


VI 


VII 


VIII 


IX 


X 


XI 


The  Redemption  of  Experience       • 

(Exod.  vi.  4) 

FAGK 

9 

'The  Sure  Mercies  of  David' 

(2  Sam.  xxiii.  3-5) 

SI 

The  Inward  Providence   .        .        , 

(Ps.  xxxii.  8) 

•      35 

The  Hidden  Spirit     .... 

(i  Cor.  vii.  40) 

•      47 

The  Two  Hands  of  God   . 

(Matt.  v.  45  and  vii.  11) 

•       57 

The  Way  of  Peace     .... 
(Gen.  xxii.  8) 

.       73 

The  Chamber  of  the  Spirit 

(2  Kings  iv.  10) 

.      85 

The  Reward  of  Love         .        ,        , 

(John  xx.  16) 

•      95 

St.  Paul's  Dynamic    .... 

(Gal.  ii.  20) 

.     105 

The  Spending  of  Life 

(Matt.  xx.  28) 

.     119 

Compensation  for  Circumstances     . 

(I  Cor.  vii.  22) 

•     129 

rtt 


Contents 


XII 

On  Trying  and  Trusting        •        • 

(An  Address) 

PAGE 
141 

XIII 

The  Lesson  of  a  Collection          . 

(Phil.  iv.  19) 

155 

XIV 

Clouds       , 

(Exod.  xiv.  20) 

.         I67 

XV 

Moods  and  Feelings        •        •        •        . 

(An  Address) 

177 

XVI 

The  Rough  Side  of  Life        •        .        , 

(Jas.  i.  2-4) 

.         185 

XVII 

The  Puritan  among  the  Flowers 
(Jas.  i.  9,  10) 

►         197 

CVIII 

Privation  and  Resolve   . 

(Ps.  ci.  2) 

•         209 

XIX 

A  Seeker  of  the  Beautiful  Life          , 

(Prov.  viii.  17) 

2IQ 

XX 

Ambition •        , 

(Acts  viii.  19) 

231 

XXi 

'The  Little  Touch'       •        .        •        , 
(2  Cor.  i.  8) 

*43 

VU1 


I 

THE    REDEMPTION   OF  EXPERIENCE 


The  Redemption  of  Experience 

/  have  also  established  my  covenant  with  them,  to  give  them  the 
land  of  Canaan,  the  land  of  their  sowurnings,  wherein  they  sojourned. — 
ExODvi.  4(R.V.). 

nr^HE  revelation  of  God  contains  great  doctrines  of 
■*•  astronomical  magnitude  as  well  as  simpler 
doctrines  on  the  homely  level  of  domestic  economy  ; 
and  as  in  daily  life  we  forget  the  heavenly  bodies  and 
give  much  attention  to  the  price  of  provisions,  so  in 
religion  we  are  apt  to  think  wholly  about  what  we  call 
the  practical  truths,  while  allowing  the  mightier  facts 
to  become  remote  and  bedimmed.  Yet  in  those  un- 
fathomable facts  lie  the  inspirations  which  alone  make 
religion  effective. 

This  verse,  for  example,  sets  forth  in  one  aspect  the 
ancient  truth  of  the  Divine  Sovereignty.  The  phrase, 
if  not  the  truth,  is  half  forgotten  to-day  ;  and  yet 
without  that  fact  as  starting-point  and  goal,  no  religion 
can  be  like  hands  stretched  out  to  capture  and  hold 
and  soothe  and  master  and  help  men.  It  is  quite 
true  that  the  doctrine  needs  to  be  apprehended  afresh. 
In  some  old  statements  of  it,  the  will  of  God  and  the 


The  Redemption  of  Experience 

immutable  decrees  occupied  the  nominative  case  so 
exclusively  that  no  room  was  left  for  man  save  as 
mere  material.  We  must  recognize  that  the  divine 
methods  are  incalculably  elastic  and  never  rigid,  and 
that  God  wins  His  way  by  infinite  resourcefulness 
instead  of  overwhelming  compulsion.  We  must 
understand  that  the  will  of  man  is  just  as  omnipotent 
over  his  own  destiny  as  God's  will  is.  But  then,  for 
our  triumphant  assurance,  we  must  come  to  see  that 
those  who  choose  God  have  something  infinitely 
stronger  than  their  own  constancy  to  trust  in,  even  a 
predestination  unto  life — a  decree  against  which  the 
world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil  may  break  their  forces 
in  vain;  and  that  human  history  and  individual 
experience  are  constantly  tending  to  a  completeness 
of  result  arid  a  perfection  of  finish  which  reveal  the 
workmanship  of  the  Master-hand. 

In  the  text  is  shown  an  instance  of  God's  mastery 
over  the  results  of  individual  lives.  He  brings  about 
a  complete  redemption  of  experience.  In  the  careers 
of  His  chosen  ones  God  turns  everything  to  account. 
Nothing  is  ultimately  lost  or  meaningless  or  unfruitful 
— no  place,  no  hour,  no  thought,  no  pang.  All  these 
shall  at  last  be  gathered  up  and  sealed  to  us  as  an 
abiding  possession.  It  was  so  with  these  saints  of  old 
days. 

'  The  land  of  their  sojournings  '  is  a  phrase  full  of 

12 


The  Redemption  of  Experience 

home-sickness.  We  can  scarcely  read  the  stories  of 
the  patriarchs  without  feeling  that  they  were  men 
exiled  in  the  distant  provinces  of  time.  Their  godly 
faith  and  spiritual  insight  were  native  to  the  gospel 
age,  and  something  deep  within  them  would  have  been 
truly  at  home  in  the  light  of  the  realized  Evangel  ; 
yet  they  led  their  brief  lives  far  off  in  strange,  1  arbaric 
days.  Abraham  stayed  his  heart  on  a  promise 
mysteriously  given ;  Jacob  strove  in  weakness  to 
grasp  a  dim  ambition  of  his  spirit ;  Moses  toiled  to 
follow  a  purpose  beyond  his  understanding  :  and  not 
until  two  thousand  years  later  did  God  in  Christ  fulfil 
the  promise  and  make  clear  the  purpose.  Meanwhile 
these  had  all  died  in  faith — and  twilight. 

How  much,  also,  in  their  lives  must  have  seemed 
arbitrary  and  unprofitable  !  Digging  a  well  to  satisfy 
a  day's  need,  or  putting  up  a  pillar  to  mark  a  moment's 
joy,  or  making  a  grave  to  bury  a  life's  sorrow — what 
trivial  work  it  was,  seeing  that  to-morrow  thirsts  and 
joys  and  sorrows  would  be  put  away  for  ever! 
Abraham  fought  his  battle  and  scattered  the  five 
kings,  and  we  see  him  come  home  and  give  away  the 
spoils,  utterly  sad  at  heart  because  such  triumphant 
adventures  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  promise.  Thus 
it  was  very  often  in  the  land  of  their  sojournings, — the 
paltry,  the  irrelevant,  and  the  futile  mocking  their 
desire  for  the  abiding  and  the  essential. 

13 


The  Redemption  of  Experience 

Yet  this  great  promise  covers  their  lives,  '  I  will  give 
them  the  land  of  their  sojournings.'  We  must  interpret 
the  promise  wonderfully  and  abundantly.  It  was,  of 
course,  fulfilled  barely  and  literally  when  Canaan 
became  the  Fatherland  of  the  Israelites  ;  but  God  is 
never  content  with  bare  and  literal  fulfilments.  It  was 
fulfilled  more  nobly  and  mystically  later  on,  when 
these  same  men  came  to  possess  the  old  land  and  their 
old  lives  in  an  eternal  and  spiritual  way.  For,  be  it 
noted,  there  are  many  degrees  in  possession.  A  man 
who  lives  long  must  have  his  property  on  a  long  lease 
if  he  is  to  enjoy  it :  otherwise  it  is  but  a  loan.  And 
an  immortal  man  can  only  possess  immortal  things, 
for  death  terminates  all  earthly  interests.  Those 
things  which  we  call  our  own  now,  whether  estates  or 
children  or  aught  else,  are  but  leasehold  property — a 
mere  loan — unless  we  can  give  them  an  eternal  value, 
blending  them  into  the  living  sacrifice  so  that  the 
money  becomes  treasure  in  heaven  and  the  young 
ones  spiritual  children  as  well  as  children  of  the  flesh 
If  that  is  done,  then  indeed  they  are  our  own  for  ever. 
It  was  thus  with  the  patriarchs.  Their  life  in  the 
land  of  their  sojournings  was  given  to  God,  and  that 
experience  was  thereby  redeemed  to  eternal  usefulness. 
Ages  afterwards,  St.  Paul  found  in  Abraham's  faith 
the  classical  picture  of  the  way  of  salvation.  The 
heartache  of  that   leaden-footed   journey  to  Moriah 

14 


The  Redemption  of  Experience 

gave  St.  James  his  argument  for  practical  religion. 
Even  the  queer  ins  and  outs  of  poor  Hagar  and  the 
rather  feline  jealousies  of  Sarah  served  an  illu- 
minating purpose  for  the  Galatians.  As  for  Jacob, 
that  pathetic  summary  of  inglorious  human  nature, 
he  is  for  ever  the  type  of  the  poor  in  spirit,  who  have 
no  asset  but  the  longing  for  God.  Still  does  the 
believer,  feeling  his  moral  insolvency,  watch  the 
patient  Love  Divine  which  forgave  and  restored  and 
cherished  Jacob,  until  he  too  cries  out,  '  Happy  is  he 
that  hath  the  God  of  Jacob  for  his  help.'  Nothing  in 
the  land  of  their  sojournings  was  lost.  Every  fraction 
of  that  chequered  experience  is  still  doing  the  holy 
work  on  which  these  men's  hearts  are  set  as  they  dwell 
in  the  presence  of  God.  All  is  gathered  into  the 
treasury  of  the  Church,  an  abiding  possession  for 
them  and  for  us. 

I  venture  to  set  this  forth  as  a  law  of  experience. 
There  is  no  waste  in  God's  universe — not  even  of 
dreams  and  tears  and  wishes.  Nature  does  not  know 
how  to  waste  her  products :  through  all  change  and 
decay  she  patiently  turns  things  to  use.  And  in  the 
realm  of  Providence,  God  maintains  an  economy 
quite  as  strict  and  immeasurably  more  wonderful. 
Especially  shall  the  lives  of  His  people  be  redeemed 
to  the  uttermost  detail.  They  are  regulated  by  a 
Hand  more   skilful,  an   Eye   more  watchful,  and   a 

i5 


The  Redemption  of  Experience 

Thought  more  careful  than  we  can  even  faintly 
understand,  and  they  will  be  found  at  last  knitted 
into  a  whole  from  which  no  part  can  be  spared. 

We  need  such  a  conviction  as  this,  for  we  are  beset 
by  the  same  difficulty  as  the  heroes  of  old — to  find 
the  immortal  purpose  in  the  day's  trifles.  So  much 
time  is  spent  in  things  which  seem  to  contradict  our 
high  calling — eating,  dressing,  sleeping,  wrestling  with 
stupid  hindrances,  bearing  small  sicknesses,  doing 
impertinent  duties,  while  the  soul  is  athirst  for  God, 
for  the  living  God.  Lips  that  can  frame  the  prayer 
and  the  song  must  haggle  for  money :  the  mind  that 
can  explore  divine  mysteries  must  consider  hardware 
and  calico :  hearts  that  would  fain  rejoice  with  joy 
unspeakable  must  lie  bound  in  affliction  and  iron. 
We  are  kings  in  the  spirit  and  drudges  in  the  flesh. 
This  is  painfully  felt  sometimes  towards  middle  life, 
when  the  dry  earthly  tasks  settle  like  swarming  locusts 
and  blight  the  verdure  of  youthful  purposes.  The 
refreshing  art  of  dreams  grows  difficult.  We  dwell  in 
Lilliput,  the  land  of  small  doings,  and  feel  it  unworthy 
of  the  children  of  God.  Worse  still,  sometimes  we  do 
not  feel  it  unworthy  of  us. 

Nevertheless,  that  province  in  the  land  of  our 
sojournings  shall  be  given  back  to  us  with  eternal 
value.  Surely  if  a  man  does  not  succumb  to  materi- 
alism— if  he  goes  through  the  day  of  small  things 

16 


The  Redemption  of  Experience 

keeping  a  resolute  belief  in  great  things,  and  does  his 
drudgery  without  becoming  a  drudge — if  he  lives  on 
earth  and  yet  maintains  by  God's  grace  his  convers- 
ation in  heaven — he  has  much  gain.  He  has  laid  hold 
on  eternal  life.  His  ideal  will  be  the  more  potent 
because  it  has  cost  so  much  to  keep.  That  experi- 
ence will  prove  blessed  and  fruitful  for  ever. 

Much  in  life  seems  irrelevant,  and  that  word 
describes  another  phase  of  the  difficulty.  So  many 
days  are  broken  by  interruptions  which  have  no 
bearing  on  our  best  purpose.  Energy  and  time  are 
dissipated,  while  the  chosen  task  stands  still.  It  is 
hard  to  say, '  No  one  knocks  at  my  door  but  God  has 
sent  him.'  Perhaps,  indeed,  it  would  not  be  quite  true 
for  there  are  many  rascals  in  the  world.  But  this  at 
least  may  be  said,  that  no  interruption  ever  comes 
which  God  cannot  teach  us  to  profit  by.  It  is  one 
compensation  for  growing  older  that  we  begin  to  see 
how  unexpectedly  useful  things  may  be.  *  Keep  an 
article  for  seven  years  and  it  will  come  in  useful,'  is  a 
spring-cleaning  maxim.  Very  wonderfully  do  random 
thoughts,  brood ings  of  the  sick-room,  conversations 
with  unwelcome  people,  things  long  buried,  rise  again 
full  of  suggestion.  Even  physical  pain,  seeming  while 
it  lasts  the  most  blind,  senseless,  and  brutal  of  all 
interruptions,  leaves  something  behind — an  otherwise 
incommunicable  touch  of  understanding.     Truly  life 

B  I7 


The  Redemption  of  Experience 

knits  together  as  the  years  pass.  We  cannot  regard 
it  as  a  cut-and-dried  scheme  drawn  up  beforehand  by 
Providence,  because  that  conception  leaves  too  little 
room  for  liberty ;  but  certainly,  as  the  feast  of  a  good 
man's  life  draws  to  its  close,  the  almighty  Economist 
sends  forth  His  mandate,  '  Gather  up  the  fragments 
that  nothing  be  lost.'  Then  the  hours  of  waiting,  the 
tentative  efforts,  the  wishes  never  gratified  and  the 
prayers  never  answered  begin  to  yield  their  profit. 
Life  is  found  luminous  with  wisdom.  It  may  even 
come  to  pass  that,  as  in  that  wilderness  meal  of  long 
ago,  the  fragments  shall  bulk  larger  than  the  feast  itself 
and  the  random  interruptions  prove  more  fruitful  than 
the  conscious  endeavour. 

And  finally,  this  truth  of  a  redeemed  experience 
brings  brave  impulse  to  the  penitent  who  mourns  his 
wilful  unfaithfulness.  For  whom  is  the  sovereign 
grace  of  God  if  not  for  the  man  who  longs  to  begin 
again  and  do  better,  yet  is  almost  hopeless  because  of 
time  lost  ?  Life  in  the  land  of  their  sojournings  was 
by  no  means  blameless  in  the  case  of  the  patriarchs, 
yet  that  did  not  hinder  this  declaration.  God's 
redeeming  power  has  no  limit.  Sin  and  idleness 
bring  a  loss  which  in  its  own  direction  is  irretrievable, 
but  repentance  and  faith  always  set  us  face  to  face 
with  an  alternative  which  may  yet  be  won.  The 
sampler  on  the  cottage  wall  used  to  read,  '  Lost,  some- 

iS 


The  Redemption  of  Experience 

where  between  sunrise  and  sunset,  two  golden  hours, 
each  set  with  sixty  diamond  minutes.  No  reward  is 
offered,  for  they  are  lost  for  ever.'  We  cannot  always 
be  sure  of  that.  In  God's  hands  even  time  is  elastic, 
and  what  is  lost  in  extent  may  sometimes  be  made  up 
for  in  intensity.  He  may  teach  us  to  pack  the  future 
far  more  full  than  we  should  have  done  without  the 
reproach  of  vacant  hours  remembered.  Even  the 
knowledge  of  sin,  bitterly  gained,  may  equip  the 
forgiven  soul  for  special  service.  There  is  no  room  for 
despair  under  the  rule  of  that  God  '  who  redeemeth 
thy  life  from  destruction.' 


•  2  19 


II 

THE   SURE   MERCIES  OF  DAVID' 


n 

'The  Sure  Mercies  of  David * 

The  God  of  Israel  said, 

The  Rock  of  Israel  spake  to  me. 

One  that  ruleth  over  men  righteously \ 

That  ruleth  in  the  fear  of  God, 

•  .  .  as  the  light  of  the  morning,  when  the  sun  riseth, 

A  morning  without  clouds ; 

.  .  .  the  tender  grass  .  .  .  out  of  the  earth, 

Through  clear  shining  after  rain. 

Verily  my  house  is  not  so  with  God ; 

Yet  He  hath  made  with  me  an  everlasting  covenant, 

Ordered  in  all  things,  and  sure. 

2  Sam.  xxiii.  3-5. 

THIS  fragment,  entitled  'the  Last  Words  of 
David/  has  the  special  value  that  it  explains 
David  better  than  any  scripture  except  the  three  or 
four  psalms  which  tradition  most  definitely  attributed 
to  him  and  criticism  cannot  with  good  reason  take 
from  him.  And  he  needs  explaining.  The  interwoven 
accounts  which  make  up  the  continuous  narrative  shed 
diverse  lights  and  shadows,  and  their  somewhat  con- 
tradictory details  leave  us  in  doubt.  Was  he  a  militant 
saint,  fallible  but  sincere,  or  mainly  an  adventurer  with 
a  dash  of  poetry  and  a  tincture  of  religious  feeling- 

23 


'The  Sure  Mercies  of  David' 

scarcely  removed  from  superstition  ?  Or  was  he 
something  between  these  two  and  more  complex  than 
either — a  man  to  whom  high  aspiration  and  incred- 
ible baseness  each  in  turn  came  naturally ;  in  whose 
soul  extreme  forms  of  good  and  evil  strove  together, 
making  it  a  field  on  which  God  gained  one  of  His 
most  protracted  and  significant  battles  ?  No  shallow 
conception  of  David  can  possibly  be  true.  A  mere 
adventurer  could  not  have  ileft  a  memory  like  his. 
The  rich  and  lingering  afterglow  tells  of  a  brilliant 
day  gone  by ;  the  long  echoes  of  his  name  must  have 
been  started  by  a  mighty  chord.  He  needs  a  great 
explanation. 

Let  us  try  to  unfold  the  testimony  to  the  real 
David  which  lies  in  the  broken  and  gasping  utterance 
before  us.  There  are  three  spiritual  facts :  an  early 
vision,  a  failure  in  mid  career,  and  an  everlasting 
covenant.  The  vision  supplies  us  with  the  initial 
motive  of  his  youth,  and  the  failure,  like  a  rock  in  the 
stream,  accounts  for  the  deepening  of  his  character  ; 
but  it  is  the  truth  about  the  everlasting  covenant 
which  lays  bare  the  miracle  of  his  life.  Every  life 
that  ends  well  is  a  miracle. 

David  was  the  romantic  figure  of  Israel's  history, 
as  Nelson  is  of  our  own.  He  appeared  first  as  the 
clean-blooded  shepherd  youth,  of  high  courage,  fine 
in  taste  and  attuned  to  hero-worship.     His  sword  was 

»4 


1  The  Sure  Mercies  of  David ' 

mighty,  and  no  less  mighty  the  harp  and  song  with 
which  he  routed  a  foe  more  subtle  than  Goliath,  the 
melancholy  spirit  entrenched  in  Saul's  bosom.  David 
rose  rapidly,  and  a  charm  hung  about  him  like  the 
1  Nelson  touch  '  of  which  sailors  talked  a  hundred  years 
ago.  Men  loved  him,  and  would  follow  with  double 
confidence  where  he  led,  counting  even  death  less 
bitter  in  his  service.  When  the  mighty  three  broke 
through  a  host  to  get  him  a  draught  of  water  and 
he  poured  it  out  to  God  as  something  too  precious 
for  common  use,  that  was  the  David  touch  of  poetic 
enthusiasm. 

David  was  never  common  in  those  brilliant  days. 
His  least  deeds  stirred  the  fancy,  and  he  found  a 
place  in  the  ballad  music  of  his  land  while  still  young. 
Maidens  of  Israel  dreamed  about  him,  and  their 
dreams  set  the  standard  for  other  youths.  Outlawry 
only  favoured  romance,  adding  fine  scenery  of  vale 
and  crag  and  watch-fire.  The  David  touch  was  seen 
again  when  he  spared  the  sleeping  Saul.  Whether 
he  shepherded  or  fought  or  sang  he  was  always  David 
the  high-hearted,  with  a  way  all  his  own.  That  dis- 
tinction attended  him  also  as  a  king.  He  was  no 
less  dashing  and  successful  in  government  than  he 
had  been  in  opposition.  His  policy  embraced  four 
objects :  to  secure  his  throne  against  malcontents 
as  mercifully  as   might   be;   to  make  the  kingdom 

'5 


'The  Sure  Mercies  of  David' 

independent  by  defeating  the  Philistines  ;  to  unify  the 
nation  around  Jerusalem,  his  own  capital  built  on 
neutral  ground ;  and  finally  to  make  his  city  and  its 
temple  the  centre  of  a  common  religious  worship. 
Three  of  these  points  David  triumphantly  gained, 
and  to  the  last  one  he  opened  the  way.  No  more  is 
needed  to  prove  his  sagacity  and  justify  the  honour 
ever  afterwards  paid  to  his  name. 

In  all  this  story  there  seems  a  certain  lack  of 
adequate  motive  until  we  come  upon  these  last  words. 
Here,  however,  we  learn  of  that  youthful  idealism 
which  had  ruled  David's  will.  It  visited  him  first  in 
the  early  days  when  he  was  king  of  the  helpless 
flock.  'The  silence  that  is  in  the  starry  sky,  the 
sleep  that  is  among  the  lonely  hills,'  purified  his 
ambition.  During  leisurely  meditations  mercy  and 
truth  took  hold  upon  his  heart.  In  the  fresh  morning 
of  a  perfect  summer  day  he  read  the  parable  of  a 
land  ruled  in  wisdom  and  strength,  and  the  tender 
grass  after  rain  suggested  the  fruitfulness  which 
springs  to  life  under  a  government  which  draws  out 
the  best  in  its  age.  God's  kindly  sway  in  nature 
taught  him  the  right  use  of  power  :  beauty,  order,  and 
strength  became  his  ideal.  If  ever  raised  to  great- 
ness he  would  be  like  that — no  selfish  Eastern  poten- 
tate, but  a  royal  shepherd  whom  the  simple  folk 
might  safely  trust.     It  reminds  us  of  the  vision  of 

26 


'The  Sure  Mercies  of  David* 

Nelson,  who,  loving  the  strength  of  words  more  than 
he  feared  mixed  metaphors,  wrote  :  *  In  my  mind's  eye 
I  ever  saw  a  radiant  orb  suspended  which  beckoned 
me  onward  to  renown/ 

A  boy's  glimpses  of  fine  possibility  are  prophetic. 
Being  born  of  grace  in  his  own  heart,  they  closely  fit 
his  special  ability  and  foretell  exactly  where  success 
or  failure  will  lie.  '  A  fountain  light  of  all  our  day' — 
that  is  the  truth  about  them.  They  are  never  super- 
seded. It  is  a  sad  mistake  to  say  lightly,  '  No  doubt 
I  shall  get  wiser  as  I  get  older.'  Nothing  more  wise 
and  true  than  those  first  aspirations  will  ever  come. 
The  jaunty  confidence  of  youth  which  older  folk 
laugh  at  is  very  largely  justified,  for  indeed  God  gives 
us  at  the  start  the  treasures  of  guidance  and  purpose 
which  most  we  need,  but  there  is  a  pitiful  hole  in  our 
pockets  and  they  often  drop  by  the  wayside.  Then 
we  must  turn  and  become  as  little  children,  going 
back  painfully  to  reclaim  them.  Life's  real  problem 
is  far  less  one  of  getting  than  of  keeping.  He  was 
right  who  wrote — 

I  pray  that  God  may  safely  keep 

'Neath  angel's  wings, 
Through  joy  and  sorrow,  toil  and  sleep — 
I  pray  that  God  may  safely  keep 


,*uv,u5u    jwjr      aim     jwnvrr,     lui, 

pray  that  God  may  safely 
Her  heart's    best  things. 


Those  first  thoughts  will  be  our  last  thoughts.    They 

27 


*  The  Sure  Mercies  of  David ' 

will  come  back  in  old  age  and  stand  by  the  death- 
bed, if  there  is  time  then,  as  they  stood  by  David's, 
either  to  rejoice  us  because  we  have  been  loyal,  or,  if 
we  have  let  them  slip,  to  load  us  with  unutterable 
reproach. 

Doubtless  during  those  days  of  boyish  vision  and 
resolve  David  entered  into  the  covenant — not,  of 
course,  with  clear  evangelic  light  to  show  him  how 
great  a  thing  he  was  doing,  but  quite  effectually  for 
all  that,  because  every  commandment  is  a  promise, 
and  every  effort  of  obedience  reacts  upon  the  heart 
with  strong  assurance.  Perhaps  it  is  the  very  joy 
of  such  a  crisis  which  rings  in  the  exultant  words, 
'  Surely  goodness  and  mercy  shall  follow  me  all  the 
days  of  my  life.' 

•  ••••• 
Somewhat   on   these   lines   must  we    picture   the 

making  of  Israel's  greatest  monarch.  The  rest  of  his 
story  proves  the  long  effect  of  a  boy's  prayer  and  the 
strength  of  that  everlasting  covenant.  After  many 
years  it  was  tested  by  a  terrible  strain.  In  the 
golden  day  of  success  the  devil  claimed  his  portion, 
and  the  claim  was  allowed.  The  noon  of  that  morn- 
ing without  clouds  grew  thick  :  the  fresh  visions  of 
the  hill-country  were  abandoned  for  chambering 
and  wantonness.  Our  glorious  David  made  himself 
common  at  last.     It  began  with  the  vulgar  intrigue 

28 


'The  Sure  Mercies  of  David ' 

of  a  middle-aged  man — the  kind  of  thing  which  one 
might  think  tempting  enough  to  any  uninspired,  low- 
thoughted  swineherd  among  his  subjects,  but  for 
David  the  rare,  the  illustrious,  the  idealist .  .  . !  That 
led  on  to  the  crafty,  unscrupulous  cruelty  common  to 
selfish  Eastern  potentates.  Thus  does  indulgence 
always  quench  distinction  and  tear  down  the  flowers 
of  character. 

'The  natural  end  of  high-flown  resolves  and 
fantastic  vows,'  says  the  cynic.  But  we  are  not 
cynics,  nor  is  this  the  end. 

There  was,  indeed,  a  dreadful  likelihood  about 
David's  fall.  A  neglected,  undisciplined  province  in 
his  nature  lay  ready  to  revolt,  awaiting  only  the 
opportune  juncture  of  idleness  and  temptation.  It 
faithfully  promised  trouble  sooner  or  later.  His  early 
religion,  though  rich  in  broad,  effective  ideals  of 
achievement,  was  doubtless  too  deficient  in  regard 
for  personal  holiness,  his  conscience  too  little  solicitous 
about  '  hidden  faults,'  to  suspect  and  cope  with  this 
lurking  disorder.  Hitherto  David  had  worshipped 
the  Lord  of  Hosts  rather  than  the  Searcher  of  hearts 
and  in  a  fair  measure  had  lived  up  to  that  level  of 
faith.  He  could  scarcely  rise  higher  without  an 
increase  of  spiritual  understanding,  for  a  man's  moral 
attainment  is  strictly  limited  by  his  heart's  creed. 
And  if  that  creed  is  to  be  deepened,  it  may  sometimes 

29 


'The  Sure  Mercies  of  David' 

be  possible  only  when  the  rebel  in  the  soul  finds  its 
opportunity,  and  in  the  grip  of  temptation  or  even  in 
the  shame  of  '  a  killing  sin/  new  knowledge  of  self 
and  God  is  gained.  That  is  a  supreme  hazard  from 
which  the  God  who  made  us  does  not  shrink,  and  it 
gives  a  meaning  to  life's  temptations.  Temptation 
and  sin  are  not  indeed  the  will  of  God,  but,  seeing 
that  they  have  already  entered  our  nature,  it  certainly 
is  His  will  that  the  bitter  experience  of  sin  shall  drive 
the  penitent  man  closer  into  the  divine  fellowship.  In 
God's  wisdom  the  tempter  is  made  to  overreach  himself 
and  frustrate  his  own  purpose,  because  the  dread  of  his 
power  adds  a  trembling  tenacity  to  the  faith  of  the 
saints.  St.  Paul  put  this  mystery  in  his  great  way 
when  he  wrote  :  '  Sin,  that  it  might  be  shown  to  be  sin, 
by  working  death  in  me  through  that  which  is  good.' 
Rich  natures  like  David  and  Nelson  reveal  the  moral 
problem  in  all  its  intricacy,  for  they  are  the  fruitful 
ground  which  favours  both  weed  and  grain  abundantly 
Set  beside  these  two  men  a  third,  the  mythical  hero, 
Lancelot.  His  confession  the  modern  poet  has  written 
in  words  reminiscent  of  Christ's  teaching. 

In  me  lived  a  sin, 
So  strange,  of  such  a  kind,  that  all  of  pure, 
Noble,  and  knightly  in  me  twined  and  clung 
Round  that  one  sin,  until  the  wholesome  flower 
And  poisonous  grew  together,  each  as  each, 
Not  to  be  pluck'd  asunder. 
30 


'The  Sure  Mercies  of  David' 

Few  are  without  some  knowledge  of  that  state.  In 
early  school-days  we  used  to  ask  at  the  beginning  of 
a  new  reign  in  the  history,  '  Was  this  king  good  or 
bad  ? '  Now  we  know  that  among  kings  and  men 
scarce  any  are  wholly  either  good  or  bad,  so  strangely 
is  human  strength  flawed  with  weakness  and  the  bad 
impulse  interwoven  with  the  good  desire.  There 
comes  home  to  us,  maybe  in  the  very  moment  of 
enthusiastic  consecration,  the  suspicion  of  what  undis- 
ciplined and  rebellious  provinces  may  yet  lie  unre- 
vealed  in  our  own  nature,  and  with  the  thought  the 
brave  protestations  die  upon  our  lips.  We  can  only 
stammer  like  the  men  at  the  Last  Supper, l  Lord,  is  it 
I?'  We  are  safest  when  asking  that  question.  It 
must  not  stay  our  surrender  to  Christ,  and  it  certainly 
cannot  hinder  His  acceptance  of  us,  but  it  will  deepen 
our  creed.  The  only  policy  for  the  faulty  man  is  to 
find  the  right  Master,  One  who  is  able  to  keep  that 
which  is  committed  unto  Him.  That  is  the  making 
of  the  covenant.  And  the  task  which  God  accepts 
for  His  Spirit  to  perform  towards  all  who  enter 
that  covenant  is  not  merely  the  blotting  out  of 
transgressions  like  figures  from  a  slate,  but  the  dis- 
entangling of  a  labyrinth  of  roots,  the  good  from  the 
evil,  that  the  good  may  be  saved. 

David's  restoration  was  very  wonderful  and  quite 
supernatural.     He   was    literally   born    from    above. 

3i 


'The  Sure  Mercies  of  David ' 

During  the  year  after  his  fall  it  became  clear  that  he 
would  never  of  himself  stir  hand  or  foot  to  escape 
from  the  quagmire.  The  case  was  hopeless  apart 
from  a  divine  intervention,  and  the  king  had  lost  his 
hold  upon  the  covenant.  But  God  remembered. 
Men  may  treat  their  boyish  prayers  lightly,  but  in 
God's  sight  they  are  weighty  and  not  to  be  set  aside. 
He  never  forgets.  Therefore  in  the  fullness  of  time 
we  behold  the  resurrection  of  David's  faith  and 
worship,  a  miracle  wrought  by  a  brave  prophet,  a 
timely  parable,  and  a  hidden  Spirit.  But  if  that  dead 
loyalty  was  sown  a  natural  body,  it  is  raised  a 
spiritual  body.  We  meet  a  new  and  far  greater 
David,  for  it  is  generally  a  'second  blessing'  that 
marks  the  believer  with  the  character  by  which  he  is 
best  remembered. 

He  found  the  divine  favour  again  with  merciful 
swiftness,  for  he  could  not  have  faced  the  toil  and 
suffering  of  recovery  without  that.  But  the  year  in 
By-path  Meadow  and  Doubting  Castle  must  be  paid 
for  and  the  sinful  nature  purged  with  hyssop.  That 
included  the  grief  of  penitence,  the  loss  of  the  might- 
have-been,  and  the  fearful  reaction  of  natural  con- 
sequence. A  godless  deed  done  is  an  unchained 
force  not  to  be  overtaken  by  the  doer.  So  the  evil 
example  went  forth,  ravaging  his  own  home  first  of 
all.     I  will  not  speak  as  though  David  were  wholly 

32 


'The  Sure  Mercies  of  David ' 

responsible  for  the  misdeeds  of  his  sons :  no  man  is 
compelled  to  follow  a  bad  example,  and  if  he  does 
so  the  sin  is  his  own.  Nevertheless  David's  record 
closed  his  mouth  from  all  fatherly  remonstrance,  and 
it  is  quite  true  that  '  the  real  sequel  of  his  sin  is  the 
cry,  "  O  Absalom,  my  son,  my  son  ! "  '  Yet  we  must 
note  this  remarkable  mercy  in  all  the  punishments, 
that  they  struck  David  through  his  nobler  nature,  his 
love  of  kin  and  people,  thus  making  his  very  remorse 
a  generous  and  passionate  thing.  There  is  no 
merely  retributive  punishment  within  the   covenant 

The  might-have-been  was  lost.  David  must  not 
build  the  temple  because  of  the  blood  that  he  had 
shed,  and  it  is  likely  that  in  this  matter  Uriah's  blood 
counted  for  more  than  all  the  rest.  Only  the  strenu- 
ous pursuer  of  great  plans  can  understand  the  disap- 
pointment of  a  lifework  thus  cut  in  two.  Yet  here 
again  is  mercy.  If  David  wrote  the  fifty-first  psalm 
(and  there  probably  is  nothing  in  the  original  version 
of  that  psalm  to  prove  this  impossible)  he  built  then 
for  the  healing  of  hurt  minds  a  matchless  temple  not 
made  with  hands.  That  hymn  is  a  temple  of  God 
better  than  all  human  dreams,  and  by  it  alone  a 
troubled  experience  would  be  wholly  redeemed  for 
the  builder. 

All  this  wonderful  dealing,  which  aims  at  nothing 
less  than  full  cleansing  and  renewal,  is  ascribed  in  our 
c  33 


'The  Sure  Mercies  of  David ' 

text  to  the  fact  of  an  everlasting  covenant.  This 
miracle  of  restoration  and  more  than  reinstatement 
is  not  simply  life  and  nature.  Things  do  not '  come 
right '  of  themselves.  It  is  the  redeeming  God  and 
His  infinite  patience.  What  God  engages  to  do  He 
does.  And  the  glory  of  the  faith  once  delivered  to 
the  saints  lies  in  this,  that  any  self- distrusting  soul, 
any  nervous  adventurer  on  the  threshold  of  life,  any 
lad  who  has  caught  a  startling  glimpse  of  the  world's 
terrible  temptations,  may  bring  himself  and  his 
treasure  of  good  purpose  and  his  weakness  and  his 
fears  to  the  covenant  God,  and  by  the  simplest  of 
prayers  secure  the  great  engagement  for  himself. 
God  will  not  forget.  A  truth  very  like  the  doctrine 
of  final  perseverance  lies  at  the  heart  of  all  effective 
religion,  only,  as  some  one  has  said,  it  must  not  be 
made  into  a  dogma.  We  will  accept  the  mighty 
encouragement  in  the  form  which  it  takes  in  one  of 
the  Psalms :  '  Commit  thy  way  unto  the  Lord : 
trust  also  in  Him,  and  He  shall  bring  it  to  pass.' 

1  Incline  your  ear,  and  come  unto  Me :  hear,  and 
your  soul  shall  live :  and  I  will  make  an  everlasting 
covenant  with  you,  even  the  sure  mercies  of  David.' 


34 


Ill 

THE   INWARD   PROVIDENCE 


c  » 


Ill 

The  Inward  Providence 

I  will  instruct  thee  and  teach  thee  in  the  way  which  thou  shalt  go :  J 
will  counsel  thee  with  Mine  eye  upon  thee. — Ps.  xxxii.  8  (R.V.). 

IN  the  depths  of  all  creeds,  often  deeper  than  men's 
doubts  about  the  creeds  can  reach,  lies  the  faith 
that  God  is  Master  and  Ruler  of  human  lives  and 
that  mercy  and  retribution  are  the  final  realities — 
especially  mercy.  It  is  a  stupendous  idea,  beset  with 
difficulties  and  sometimes  utterly  inconceivable,  yet 
it  survives  every  shock  and  remains  the  instinctive 
conviction  which  inspires  all  worship.  To  a  merely 
thoughtful  man,  theorizing  with  this  unintelligible 
world  in  full  view,  the  difficulties  may  well  be  more 
than  he  can  solve  or  even  count.  How  can  God  rule 
and  men  be  free  and  responsible  ?  How  can  God  be 
said  to  rule  when  so  much  goes  amiss  ?  And  so  forth  ! 
It  is  something  altogether  different  from  logic  which 
helps  us  here,  removing  difficulties  and  touching  the 
heart :  it  is  the  startled  insight  of  a  penitent  sinner. 
Nothing  cleanses  the  eyes  like  tears  of  contrite 
sorrow — after   a   time.     The   rainbow    of   revelation 

37 


The  Inward  Providence 

always  dawns  there  ;  for  the  knowledge  of  sin  is  the 
clue  to  the  knowledge  of  God. 
Read  the  text  in  this  manner : — 

I  will  make  thee  wise  {or  circumspect)  ; 

I  will  point  out  to  thee  the  way  which  thou  shalt  go : 

I  will  fix  mine  eye  firmly  upon  thee. 

It  is  a  threefold  assurance  of  guardianship.  God 
will  do  something  in  the  man.  Middle-aged  as  he 
is,  he  shall  yet  be  instructed  more  deeply  than 
ever,  and  shall  find  himself  never  too  old  to  learn. 
God  will  do  something  round  about  the  man.  He 
shall  have  the  guidance  of  circumstances,  of  closed 
and  opened  doors,  which  only  the  wise  can  understand. 
Finally,  this  man  being  a  backslider  of  proven 
weakness,  God  will  watch  him  with  fixed  attention  to 
correct  the  least  slip.  Providential  care  is  shown  to 
be  a  very  complex  thing,  operating  along  many  lines 
which  converge  to  the  great  result.  But  more  parti- 
cularly for  our  purpose,  it  is  largely  an  inward  thing, 
dealing  first  and  foremost  with  the  mind  rather  than 
with  the  circumstances,  according  to  this  initial  pro- 
mise, ■  I  will  make  thee  wise.'  Probably  circumstances 
are  much  more  nearly  right  than  people  admit,  and 
where  failure  arises  the  man  himself  is  generally  at 
fault.  Also  men  can  never  be  saved  from  the  outside 
or  by  the  most  favourable  circumstances.  Deliverance 
must    be   wrought   supremely   by   an   inward   grace 

38 


The  Inward  Providence 

illuminating  the  mind  and  making  men  circumspect 
and  self-adaptive  to  win  the  mastery  over  life's  con- 
ditions. It  is  written  that  God  did  not  stay  the  flood, 
but  Noah,  being  warned  by  Him,  prepared  an  ark  for 
the  saving  of  his  house.  The  grand  resource  and 
secret  of  the  Most  High  in  the  protecting  of  His 
children  is  this  gift  of  wisdom. 

That  theory  of  Divine  Providence  is  in  complete 
contrast  to  the  popular  notion  that  it  is  a  power 
wholly  external  to  us.  Many  folk  still  think  of  God 
in  the  way  Omar  Khayyam  thought  of  Him — as  an 
infinite  Chess-player,  with  the  world  for  His  board. 
There  stand  bishops  and  knights  and  pawns,  each  on 
its  own  square  and  perhaps  untouched  for  long 
intervals.  But  every  piece  is  moved  from  time 
to  time  by  the  inexorable  Hand,  and  sooner  or  later 
every  piece  is  sacrificed  for  ends  that  it  cannot  know. 
Our  duty  is  simply  to  trust  that  God  is  winning  the 
game  in  His  own  way.  Every  one  has  met  with 
abundant  illustrations  of  this  forlorn  view.  Here  is 
a  cottage  interior  from  real  life.  The  room  is  bare 
and  dirty.  On  the  floor  three  or  four  tiny  children 
scramble  in  play  with  two  or  three  puppies,  all 
so  begrimed  that  it  is  hard  to  distinguish  the  human 
from  the  canine.  A  slatternly,  loose-lipped  mother 
tells  the  story  of  her  troubles — a  story  of  incapacity 
and  mismanagement,  though  not  of  flagrant  wrong- 

39 


The  Inward  Providence 

doing.  Then  when  the  long  complaint  is  ended,  she 
sees  the  ministerial  hat  on  the  table  and  hastens  to 
add,  '  Ah  well !  I  suppose  we  must  believe  that  these 
things  are  sent  for  our  good/ 

There  is  a  common  view  gathered  up  into  one 
tame,  conventional  little  tag.  The  fruits  of  indolence 
and  incapacity  and  small  self-indulgence,  'sent  for 
our  good ' !  Thus  do  the  uninstructed  ones  most 
pitifully  talk,  taking  the  name  of  the  Lord  their  God 
in  vain — finding  faith  a  poor  futility.  They  cast  their 
burden  upon  the  Lord  in  quite  the  wrong  sense,  for 
they  lay  only  the  blame  of  it  on  Him.  They  think 
themselves  not  so  much  led  through  the  world  as 
dragged  through  it,  like  a  child's  toy  across  the  parlour 
floor,  meeting  with  a  bump  here  and  a  bump  there  ; 
and  having  caught  a  gleam  of  religious  truth  from 
the  nursery  or  the  pulpit,  they  feel  it  right  to  say 
without  conviction,  '  I  suppose  the  bumps  are  all  for 
my  good.'  They  are  puppets  in  the  hand  of  the 
Inscrutable  One :  they  are  not  made  wise. 

If  such  is  the  idea  of  Providence  vaguely  held  by 
the  unthinking  folk,  the  bolder  and  better  trained 
minds  are  in  danger  of  losing  all  ideas  on  the  matter. 
They  cannot  detect  any  gracious  intervention  in 
outward  affairs,  and  many  to-day  are  drifting  away 
from  belief  in  a  personal,  over-ruling  God  because 
either  His  omnipotence  or  His  benevolence  seems  to 

40 


The  Inward  Providence 

be  contradicted  on  every  page  of  life.  From  hostile 
faces  and  false  lips,  from  mysterious  failures  of  brain 
and  physical  strength,  from  the  unconscious  cruelty  of 
social  systems,  troubles  come.  The  Hand  which  points 
out  the  way  to  the  individual  and  to  the  race  wears 
often  so  heavy  a  gauntlet  of  affliction  that  men  begin 
to  call  it  no  longer  God  but  Necessity.  A  lady  put 
this  universal  difficulty  to  me  in  a  simple  but  complete 
statement.  '  My  troubles,'  she  said,  ■  come  from  the 
unkindness  of  other  people,  and  they  are  very  hard 
to  bear  because  I  know  they  are  not  God's  will. 
Unkindness  cannot  be  His  will.'  Her  complaint 
wellnigh  covers  all  the  dreary  catalogue  of  human 
suffering.  Nearly  always  it  is  *  somebody's  fault.' 
The  cotton-corner  which  spreads  want  over  an  English 
county,  the  opened  lamp  in  the  coal-mine  which 
darkens  a  hundred  homes,  the  careless  workmanship 
at  the  drain  which  slays  the  darling  of  the  household, 
the  heartbreak  of  a  fruitless  search  for  employment — 
these  surely  are  not  the  will  of  your  Heavenly 
Father. 

The  truth  is  that  so  long  as  the  children  of  men 
are  free,  and  while  they  rebel  against  right  or  come 
short  of  it,  very  much  in  things  as  they  are  will  be 
contrary  to  God's  first  and  final  purpose.  Yet  it  is 
undoubtedly  His  will  that  we  should  face  things  as 
they  are  and  share  the  conflict  and  sorrow  of  Christ. 

4i 


The  Inward  Providence 

1  Not  peace  but  a  sword  ! '  is  the  word  for  the  night. 
1  Let  both  grow  together  until  the  harvest '  is  the 
divine  policy.  The  God  of  the  rainbow  will  not 
destroy  faulty  men  summarily,  for  that  would  be 
omnipotence  defeating  redemption.  Cause  and  effect 
must  not  be  tampered  with,  for  they  are  the  rules  of 
the  great  game.  Suffering  and  disorder  even  become 
the  will  of  God  in  a  limited  and  temporal  sense 
because  they  are  the  reaction  of  His  holy  constancy 
upon  human  error.  Mankind  in  the  mass  makes  the 
joy  or  sorrow  of  its  circumstances  as  the  shell-fish 
makes  its  own  shell.  The  knot  which  is  in  our  life- 
problem  cannot  be  cut :  it  must  be  untied  by  the 
divine  patience  of  the  saints. 

Into  this  crisis  of  stress  and  fear  there  comes  with 
a  clear,  reassuring  note  this  gospel  of  the  old-time 
penitent,  '  I  will  make  thee  wise.'  It  is  sufficient. 
Atlantic  storms  may  be  beyond  control,  but  nothing 
hinders  men  from  building  ships  strong  enough  to 
weather  them.  There  may  be  limits  which  we  know 
not  to  the  miraculous  betterment  of  circumstances 
outside,  but  there  is  no  limit  to  God's  power  to  build 
up  His  saints  inwardly  in  strength.  He  may  be 
barred  out  of  a  thousand  hearts,  but  He  need  not  be 
barred  out  of  thine.  And  this  gospel  is  ennobling 
because  it  is  educative.  It  may  be  doubted  if  '  God 
tempers  the  wind  to  the  shorn  lamb/  but  it  is  not  at 

42 


The  Inward  Providence 

all  doubtful  that  He  expects  men  to  invent  warmer 
clothing.  The  blessings  of  Providence  are  not  for 
idlers,  but  for  those  who  are  willing  to  learn  wisdom. 

It  is  only  needful  to  add  some  brief  hints  as  to  the 
nature  of  this  wisdom  which  arms  us  against  trial,  so 
that  we  may  be  the  more  ready  to  learn  it.  The 
name  *  Wisdom  '  pervades  the  Old  Testament,  bring- 
ing the  glimmer  of  jewels  and  visions  of  a  good 
woman's  face  as  tokens  of  its  power  to  adorn  and 
enrich  life.  In  our  text  a  smaller  word  is  used 
indicating  circumspection  or  intelligence ;  yet  that  is 
but  wisdom  applied  practically.  The  assertion  is 
that  we  may  be  made  wise  to  think  God's  thoughts 
after  Him,  intelligent  to  recognize  the  meaning  of  His 
way  with  us,  and  when  understanding  fails — as  fail 
sometimes  it  will — patient  to  endure  with  a  great 
trust  Never  lay  aside  the  endeavour  to  understand, 
nor  forget  the  need  of  labouring  with  God.  Mere 
acquiescence  cannot  be  the  end  of  our  faith.  He  has 
called  us  friends — not  puppets.  Trials  and  griefs 
have  no  inevitable  efficacy.  In  every  different 
destiny  of  joy  and  sorrow,  health  and  sickness,  help 
and  injury,  there  lie  hidden  both  a  use  and  a  misuse, 
both  a  blessing  and  a  curse,  and  only  active  wisdom 
can  choose  the  better  part. 

If  any   ask   how   this   practical   wisdom   is   com- 
pounded, I  answer  that  it  is  not  compounded  at  all, 

43 


l'he  inward  Providence 

for  it  is  very  simple.  Men  arrive  at  it  by  subtraction 
rather  than  addition — by  being  stripped  of  needless 
things  till  only  one  master-passion  is  left.  It  lies  in 
the  motive.  It  might  be  called  innocence,  or  singleness 
of  eye,  or  purity  of  intention.  If  a  man  will  sink 
quietly  down  upon  the  love  of  right  that  is  in  him, 
with  full  purpose  of  heart  so  that  mixed  motives  are 
excluded,  he  shall  reach  wisdom.  '  This  one  thing  I 
do/  said  a  master  of  wisdom,  and  the  value  of  single- 
ness is  ever  insisted  upon.  '  But  one  thing  is  needful ' : 
'  seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God,'  and  all  shall  be 
well.  This  numerical  test  is  an  excellent  guide,  for  if 
a  man  is  to  have  but  one  motive  it  must  needs  be  the 
mightiest  motive.  None  but  God  can  absorb  a  soul's 
attention.  We  might  define  wisdom  as  'absorbed 
attention  to  God/  and  it  would  harmonize  well  with 
the  other  two  promises  in  this  verse.  That  is  the 
very  attitude  of  one  who  watches  circumstances  to 
find  the  pointing  Hand,  and  it  is  the  only  fit  response 
to  a  God  who  fixes  His  eye  firmly  upon  us. 

When  we  grow  bewildered  and  fail  in  the  turmoil 
of  life  it  is  just  for  lack  of  this  singleness.  We  see  too 
many  considerations  and  cherish  too  many  interests. 
We  would  fain  serve  God  on  a  high  plane  and  yet 
advance  ourselves  on  a  lower  one ;  we  would  be  filled 
with  the  Spirit  and  yet  guard  some  dear  interest  of 
the  flesh ;  we  would  stand  for  righteousness  and  yet 

44 


The  Inward  Providence 

keep  an  unblessed  peace  with  a  wrong-doer  who 
seems  profitable  to  us.  Thus  wisdom  is  lost  and  the 
mind  confused  by  compromise,  and  we  are  powerless 
to  grapple  with  our  difficulties.  The  remedy  lies  in 
a  simple-hearted  falling  back  on  the  instinct  for  good 
which  God  has  wrought  in  us.  Concentrate  on  one 
thing  and  thou  shalt  no  longer  be  '  careful  and 
troubled  about  many  things.'  It  is  the  secret  of  all 
strength  and  preparedness,  for  the  intensity  of  one 
motive  will  bring  all  the  resources  of  thy  God-given 
nature  into  full  play.  Under  that  eager  impulse 
contrivance  will  be  quickened  and  force  gained;  thou 
shalt  be  a  Great-heart  in  simplicity,  taking  the  right 
way  with  instinctive  skill  and  able  to  prove  that '  all 
which  we  behold  is  full  of  blessings.'  Thus  in  find- 
ing God  thou  shalt  find  thy  true  self  with  its  destiny 
of  heavenly  success,  and  great  shall  be  thy  peace. 


45 


IV 
THE  HIDDEN   SPIRIT 


IV 

The  Hidden  Spirit 

/  think  that  I  also  have  the  Spirit  of  God.— I  Cor.  vii.  40. 

A  FEW  phrases  in  this  long  discussion  of  marriage 
are  apt  to  draw  the  mind  away  from  the 
subject-matter  and  set  the  reader  speculating  as  to  the 
method  by  which  Holy  Scripture  was  made.  ■  To 
the  married  I  give  charge,  yea,  not  I,  but  the  Lord.  .  .  . 
To  the  rest  say  I,  not  the  Lord.  .  .  .  Concerning 
virgins  I  have  no  commandment  of  the  Lord.  .  .  . 
I  think  that  I  also  have  the  Spirit  of  God.'  In 
these  sayings  we  seem  to  come  behind  the  scenes. 
As  a  man  may  travel  for  once  by  the  night-mail  and 
on  dim  railway  platforms  get  a  new  conception  of  the 
immense  industry  which  quietly  and  certainly  lays 
his  letters  on  the  breakfast  table,  so  here  we  behold 
one  of  those  *  divers  manners '  in  which  God  conveyed 
His  canonical  messages  to  humankind.  Rising  at  one 
moment  far  above  our  level  the  apostle  is  sure  of  a 
divine  authority  for  his  words :  at  another  point  he 
as  surely  disclaims  such  authority;  and  in  the  last 
instance  he  confesses  to  a  shade  of  doubt. 

D  49 


The  Hidden  Spirit 

The  passages  are  very  like  St.  Paul  in  their  impulsive 
candour,  but  the  last  one  is  somewhat  unlike  his  mag- 
nificent decisiveness.  He  does  not  usually  allow  any 
discount  on  his  exhortations,  and  no  man  ever  wore 
authority  with  more  absolute  conviction.  Yet  it  is 
better  to  take  the  words  in  good  faith  as  an  expres- 
sion of  genuine  doubt.  The  suggestion  of  some 
students  that  they  are  equivalent  to  the  forcible  '  I 
should  think  so  indeed  ! '  which  we  moderns  use  when 
indignantly  certain  of  a  thing  would  be  plausible  if 
there  were  sufficient  occasion  for  ironical  vehemence, 
but  that  is  hardly  so  here.  It  is  more  likely  that  for 
once  the  writer's  experience  descended  into  line  with 
our  own.  The  Spirit  did  not  leave  him,  but  that 
Spirit  hid  Himself  so  deeply  in  the  man's  mind  that 
St.  Paul  could  not  distinguish  the  divine  Voice  from 
the  action  of  his  own  faculties,  or  the  heavenly  Wisdom 
from  his  own  consecrated  and  practised  judgement. 
It  is  only  an  episode,  but  it  illustrates  a  familiar  situa- 
tion, for  the  episode  of  an  apostle  may  be  the  almost 
everyday  history  of  lesser  men.  The  situation  is 
this, — a  man  under  inspiration,  yet  moved  and 
guided  by  a  Hidden  Spirit  whose  presence  he  cannot 
for  the  time  detect.  We  find  there  an  instance  of 
the  familiar  difficulty  of  recognizing  the  Spirit  of 
God. 

The  difficulty  bears  hardly  upon  our  hearts  at  times 
5° 


The  Hidden  Spirit 

because  the  indwelling  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  so  vital 
to  us.  Truly  enough,  we  are  not  called  to  lay  down 
rules  of  faith  and  conduct  for  the  ages  ;  but  our 
humbler  task  is  our  all,  and  it  depends  utterly  upon 
the  Inward  Director.  In  the  little  sailors'  church  of 
Notre  Dame  de  Bon  Secours  at  Montreal  many 
votive  lamps  hang  before  the  altar,  each  one  modelled 
after  the  steamship  or  schooner  in  which  some 
worshipper  pursues  his  calling.  And  on  the  wall  is  a 
prayer  that  as  the  light  is  always  burning  in  those 
lamps,  so  God  will  keep  the  light  of  His  Spirit  ever 
burning  in  His  children's  hearts.  That  is  the  bare 
necessity  of  our  case.  It  is  not  enough  to  hear  of  the 
Father  and  cherish  the  memory  of  the  Galilean 
Jesus  :  we  must  touch  God  hourly,  or  we  have  lost 
'  the  hope  of  glory/  Religion  loses  all  meaning  and 
we  are  stricken  into  helpless  loneliness  if  the  promises 
are  not  fulfilled—'  He  dwelleth  with  you  and  shall 
be  in  you ' — '  If  any  man  be  in  Christ  he  is  a  new 
creature.* 

Such  is  the  glorious  theory  of  the  new  life  in 
Christ.  There  have  been  many  passages  in  our  lives 
when  it  was  all  manifestly  true — times  of  wonder  and 
joy  when  ca  new  creature*  was  language  not  too 
strong  to  describe  our  feelings.  But  have  there  not 
been  strange  disappointments  also?  The  upliftings 
are  followed  by  depressions  and  reaction.  'Love 
Da  51 


The  Hidden  Spirit 

flows  like  the  Solway  and  ebbs  like  its  tide.'  Old 
temptations  again  assert  themselves  and  difficulties 
of  temperament  remain.  Thomas  is  Thomas  still — 
after  the  Vision.  The  song  of  the  heart  which  was 
like  a  June  nightingale  changes  to  the  small  twitter 
of  the  nightingale  in  July.  Assurance  gives  place  to 
questioning,  and  we  can  but  say,  *  I  think  that  I  have 
the  Spirit  of  God.' 

The  doubt  may  even  increase.  The  man  plods 
heavily,  tried  by  his  task.  He  thinks  obscurely, 
suspects  blunders,  grows  anxious  and  weary.  Surely 
all  would  be  different  if  he  were  filled  with  the  light- 
winged  Spirit  of  God !  Work  would  go  like  magic 
then.  He  is  convinced  that  he  has  grieved  the 
Spirit ;  and  sometimes  he  has,  but  not  always.  The 
language  of  his  labouring  heart  shades  off  into  '  I 
hope  that  I  have  the  Spirit.  ...  I  wish  that  I  had  the 
Spirit  of  God.' 

Literal-minded  and  thoughtful  children  suffer  from 
this  difficulty  of  recognizing  the  Spirit  of  God.  Often- 
times is  the  warning  given  from  the  Sunday-school 
desk — '  You  will  fail  if  you  try  in  your  own  strength : 
you  must  get  God's  strength.'  'Tis  a  time-honoured 
saying  because  of  its  importance,  and  not  because  of 
its  lucidity.  A  child  may  very  well  reason  thus, — *  It 
is  no  use  my  trying,  for  that  would  be  using  my  own 
strength.     I  must  wait  till  some  strange  and  wonder- 

5* 


The  Hidden  Spirit 

ful  power  comes,  which  cannot  possibly  be  my  own.' 
So,  instead  of  finding  in  the  well-worn  counsel 
something  practical  to  do  which  even  a  child  can 
understand,  he  feels  himself  condemned  to  wait 
wearily  for  a  miracle.  I  know  well  one  child  (and 
am  loth  to  think  him  quite  unintelligent)  who  thus 
thought,  and  whose  experience  for  years  was  a  tire- 
some and  anxious  effort  to  make  out  the  difference 
between  God's  strength  and  his  own. 

For  child  and  man  alike  reassurance  lies  in  the 
truth  of  the  Hidden  Spirit.  While  His  indwelling  is 
always  a  fact  of  faith,  it  is  not  always  a  fact  of  feeling. 
He  is  in  us — aye,  long  before  we  know  and  always 
far  nearer  than  we  know ! — but  often  in  a  manner  so 
quiet  and  homely  that  we  scarcely  realize  Him. 
Who  that  reads  a  book  takes  note  at  the  same  time 
of  the  light  by  which  he  reads  ?  The  book  must  be 
uninteresting  or  the  light  poor  if  he  does.  Who  that 
shapes  some  handiwork  considers  the  nervous  energy 
moving  his  fingers  ?  The  Spirit  is  often  like  that — 
hidden,  anonymous  to  the  mind  intent  on  detail. 
Yet  He  hath  wrought  all  our  works  for  us.  In  plainest 
truth  God's  strength  is  not  usually  distinguishable 
from  our  own  strength  except  by  its  effects,  nor  is  the 
divine  life  within  us  always  to  be  distinguished  from 
our  own  life  at  its  best.  Only  disappointment  and 
delay  can  result  from  waiting  for  something  foreign 

53 


The  Hidden  Spirit 

to  fall  upon  us  like  Elijah's  mantle  or  the  tongues  of 
flame.  For  the  Spirit  comes  oftentimes  not  with 
observation.  He  keeps  all  the  laws  of  our  nature.  The 
life  of  God  blends  inseparably  with  our  mental  life, 
and  in  all  innocent  matters  we  remain  very  like 
ourselves.  As  the  tide  flowing  over  the  shore  takes 
the  shape  of  the  shore,  filling  its  channels  and  mark- 
ing its  contours  till  the  sands  are  lost  in  the  flood, 
so  this  new  life  takes  the  shape  of  a  man's  natural 
disposition  and  idiosyncrasy.  Nay,  it  often  emphasizes 
these  because  in  them  may  lie  the  capacity  for  special 
usefulness.  It  is  all  supernatural,  yet  all  delightfully 
natural,  for  to  this  end  we  were  created — to  be 
filled  with  God.  It  is  often  fitting  to  say,  *  I  think 
that  I  have  the  Spirit  of  God,'  but  we  may  say  it 
with  ever-growing  assurance. 

In  our  insistence  on  this  quiet,  habitual  dwelling  of 
the  Spirit  deep  within  our  nature  there  is  certainly  no 
intention  of  ignoring  His  vivid  action  upon  our 
feelings,  or  of  rebuking  the  desire  for  joyous  spiritual 
excitements.  It  may  well  be  believed  that  the 
Church  is  even  now  on  the  eve  of  a  more  emotional 
experience.  She  has  walked  in  sober  garments  and 
talked  in  prose  for  a  long  time.  The  song  will  return 
soon.  But  there  is  surely  a  supreme  joy  in  remem- 
bering that  this  divine  Life  in  the  midst  of  our  life  is  a 
fact  more  constant  than  all  our  feelings  and  not  dis- 

54 


The  Hidden  Spirit 

proved  by  any  of  them.  In  that  lies  our  hope  for 
all  the  great  miracles  of  experience  and  our  guidance 
while  we  are  waiting  for  them. 

For  this  truth  is  above  all  things  else  a  call  to 
make  the  best  of  ourselves  by  earnest  effort.  The 
Hidden  Spirit  leaves  a  man  singularly  free  and 
singularly  responsible,  while  at  the  same  time  setting 
at  his  disposal  all  the  wisdom  and  strength  by  which 
responsibility  may  be  nobly  discharged.  God's  life 
inspires  man's  heart  and  mind  and  will,  but  it  does  not 
take  their  place.  Boundless  resources  for  our  proper 
work  are  in  us,  but  the  only  thing  which  can  make 
them  fruitful  is  the  active  consent  of  our  will.  God 
can  do  anything  with  a  man  who  tries :  He  can  do 
nothing  with  one  who  idles.  The  heavenly  inspiration 
is  conditional  upon  our  action.  It  is  given  for 
holiness,  and  it  is  lost  by  those  who  forsake  the  quest 
of  holiness.  The  human  must  never  abdicate  before 
the  divine,  but  co-operate.  Certain  old  truths  of 
common  sense  are  for  ever  true.  The  full  and  rich 
mind  is  the  result  of  study  and  thought ;  the  helpful 
nature  becomes  so  by  dint  of  loving  practice  which 
brings  skill  in  speaking  the  right  word  and  doing  the 
tactful  thing ;  the  will  grows  strong  by  repeated 
resolution  and  steady  acting  on  principle.  Nothing 
can  shake  these  facts  or  supersede  these  homely 
methods.     And  yet,  if  you  do  these  things  in  simple 

55 


The  Hidden  Spirit 

faith  and  loyal  purpose,  the  life  of  God  that  is  in  you 
shall  prove  its  reality  by  results  better  than  you  dream 
of,  and  by  effects  which  have  a  touch  of  spiritual 
wonder  such  as  no  study  or  practice  alone  could 
give 


93 


V 

THE  TWO   HANDS  OF  GOD 


V 

The  Two  Hands  of  God 

Your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  .  .  .  maketh  His  sun  te  rise  on 
the  evil  and  on  the  good,  and  sendeth  rain  on  the  just  and  on  the 
unjust. — Matt.  v.  45. 

Bow  much  more  shall  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  give  good  things 
to  them  that  ask  Hi?n  ? — Matt.  vii.  II. 

IN  this  sermon  Jesus  thought  fit  to  reveal  the 
nature  of  God  in  the  simplest  possible  fashion. 
He  made  two  pictures,  Sun  and  Shower  and  The 
Blessing  of  the  Prayej-ful^  and  in  them  is  gathered  up 
all  that  we  need  to  know  or  can  possibly  understand 
of  this  great  theme.  The  first  is  God  in  Nature  and 
the  second  the  God  of  Grace ;  and  the  pronounce- 
ment of  Jesus  is  that  the  two  pictures  reveal  the  same 
God.  '  Hear,  O  Israel :  the  Lord  our  God  is  one 
Lord.'  They  form  a  profound  study  in  apparent 
contrast  and  concealed  unity — a  harmonious  discord 
in  the  symphony  of  Truth.  They  offer  a  doctrine 
which  our  own  time  greatly  needs  to  consider. 

We  are  at  once  struck  with  the  forcible  contrast 
on  the  surface.  Taking  the  second  picture  alone  it 
presents  no  difficulty,  for  it  is  the  God  of  the  Evangel 

59 


The  Two  Hands  of  God 

and  of  our  fathers.  Nothing  can  possibly  be  more 
important  to  Him  than  the  moral  character  and 
spiritual  disposition  of  men.  *  The  eyes  of  the  Lord 
are  upon  the  righteous  .  .  .  the  face  of  the  Lord 
is  against  them  that  do  evil.'  This  God  is  a  re- 
warder  of  them  that  diligently  seek  Him :  in  other 
words,  He  has  His  favourites  of  the  contrite  heart. 
He  is  a  pardoning  God,  whose  administration  permits 
the  transfigurement  of  a  sinful  past  and  the  blotting 
out  of  transgressions.  Any  day  and  any  moment 
the  penitent  man  may  make  a  fresh  beginning  in  the 
strength  of  grace.  And  the  pathway  of  this  God  is 
strewn  with  miracles — answered  prayers,  healings  of 
hurt  minds  which  often  pass  into  healings  of  sick 
bodies,  inward  voices  of  comfort  and  counsel,  amazing 
coincidences  of  guidance  and  the  unfailing  witness 
of  an  indwelling  Spirit.  For  miracles  are  simply  the 
spontaneous  acts  of  a  personal  God  who  cares  only 
to  be  consistent  with  His  own  redeeming  purpose. 

But  on  turning  back  to  the  earlier  verse  we  find 
the  strange  contrast.  Here  nothing  seems  less  im- 
portant than  character  and  disposition.  True,  this 
April  picture  of  God  is  also  beautiful,  especially  as 
Jesus  uses  it  to  enforce  a  lesson  of  forbearance.  The 
sun  and  the  shower  are  both  helping  to  make  the 
cowslips,  and  even  sin  must  not  be  allowed  to  freeze  the 
geniality  of  God  in  nature  or  stem  the  stream  of  His 

60 


The  Two  Hands  of  God 

bounty.  That  generous,  c  undistinguishing  regard' 
is  lovely  on  its  bright  side.  But  there  is  another  and 
a  more  difficult  side.  When  the  stress  of  a  crisis 
comes,  and  ordinary  ways  and  means  have  failed, 
that  forbearance  looks  strangely  like  indifference, 
that  even-handed  impartiality  like  unpitying  hardness. 
Nature  is  uniform,  making  no  favourites,  working 
from  cause  to  effect,  turning  not  aside  for  the  bitter- 
est cry.  Is  it  not  as  foolish  to  pray  about  the 
weather  as  it  was  for  the  Irish  servant  to  tie  the 
weathercock  in  the  south-west  for  fear  a  cold  wind 
might  harm  his  invalid  mistress?  Sun  and  shower 
are  indeed  delightful  while  they  are  making  cowslips, 
but  the  sun  of  a  hot  summer  may  ruin  the  godly 
farmer  who  lives  on  the  upland  in  spite  of  his 
supplications,  while  it  prospers  the  unbelieving 
farmer  whose  land  is  in  the  fen.  The  same  wet 
August  may  spoil  the  saint's  wheat  and  nourish  the 
sinner's  turnips.  In  the  market-place  also  it  would 
seem  that  prayer  does  not  take  the  place  of  sorely 
needed  capital.  Custom  and  prosperity  come  to  him 
who  best  understands  buying  and  window-dressing, 
and  these  coveted  visitors  pay  little  heed  to 
character. 

The  problem  begins  to  shape  itself,  but  the  acute 
distress  of  it  is  felt  when  the  rough  hand  touches  our 
tender  interests.     The  dreadful  hour  when 

61 


The  Two  Hands  of  God 

The  sensuous  frame 
Is  rack'd  with  pangs  that  conquer  trust ; 
And  Time,  a  maniac  scattering  dust, 
And  Life,  a  Fury  slinging  flame, 

may  come  even  to  the  disciple  whom  Jesus  loves. 
What  of  the  watcher  who  sits  by  the  bed  where  a 
life  dearer  than  his  own  lies  in  danger  ?  He  feels,  as 
such  watchers  often  do,  far  more  anguish  than  the 
sick  one  endures.  The  ceaseless  cough  and  the 
laboured  breathing  wring  his  heart,  and  the  old 
instinctive  cry  rises  to  his  lips,  '  Come  down  ere  my 
child  die.'  But  the  quiet  voice  of  ordered  knowledge 
says,  '  It  all  depends  on  the  constitution.  If  the 
heart  can  stand  the  strain.  .  .  .'  Alas,  we  thought 
that  it  depended  on  God  who  raiseth  the  dead,  and 
behold  it  lies  with  Nature  who  is  deaf. 

Again,  it  is  said  of  the  God  of  Grace  that  He 
tempteth  not  any.  Can  you  say  that  of  Nature  ? 
She  uses  strong  desires  as  her  driving  force :  she 
spreads  before  men  crude  and  simple  delights  which 
require  no  pilgrimage  and  impose  no  discipline.  So 
often  the  heavenly  call  is  drowned  for  young  ears  by 
her  Circean  enchantments. 

So  the  problem  grows,  and  Nature  becomes  to  us 
the  great  bewilderment ;  at  one  hour,  perhaps,  the 
motherly  friend  '  who  never  did  betray  the  heart  that 
loved  her,'  and  at  another  '  the  Lady  of  the  Hills 
with  crimes  untold.'     She  seems  to  value  everything 

62 


The  Two  Hands  of  God 

but  the  treasure  of  faith,  and  the  highest  grace  of 
character  must  be  won  in  her  despite.  She  seems 
now  broadly  beneficent,  again  exquisitely  cruel,  and 
often  utterly  callous.  And,  strangest  of  all,  the  fact 
of  Nature  is  to-day  actually  interposing  to  hide  and 
banish  the  sorely  needed  vision  of  Grace  and  the  fact 
of  Christ  from  many  minds.  '  The  modern  man  to 
whom  Nature  means  much  more  than  Grace' — a  recent 
writer  could  drop  that  clause  from  his  pen  quite 
casually  because  it  is  so  true.  The  age  is  dominated 
by  the  revelation  of  the  rocks  and  the  microscope, 
and  it  will  not  easily  be  convinced  that  they  tell  only 
half  the  story  without  the  interpretation.  Men  are 
entering  upon  the  inauspicious  task  of  working  out 
their  own  salvation  by  natural  methods  without  the 
full  assurance  of  the  inward  working  of  a  mighty 
God.  Education  must  do  instead  of  .  conversion : 
' Ye  must  be  born  again '  becomes  for  the  race  a 
matter  of  eugenics  :  a  vague  brotherly-kindness  takes 
the  place  of  the  old  solemn  sense  of  obligation  to  the 
covenant  God.  Such  is  the  tendency  of  our  time. 
Doubtless  it  turns  our  attention  to  many  neglected 
outward  duties  and  helps,  and  it  must  not  be  met 
with  narrow  prejudice ;  yet  if,  in  the  drift  of  it,  men 
lose  their  full  faith  in  the  God  of  Grace  the  heart  will 
drop  out  of  the  effort  and  piteous  disillusionment  will 
follow  all  endeavour. 

63 


The  Two  Hands  of  God 

A  railway-carriage  acquaintance  said  to  me  recently : 
'  If  you  believe  in  a  God  who  is  just  like  a  big  man  ' — 
he  meant  the  personal  God  of  our  ancient  faith — 'you 
have  many  difficulties  to  face.'  That  is  true  enough. 
The  trouble  of  men's  thoughts  is  not  trifling  :  they  do 
not  question  the  sweetness  of  spring  merely  because 
there  are  prickles  on  the  hawthorn,  but  because  there 
are  deep  veins  of  agony  in  life.  If  we  believe  in  the 
heavenly  Father  who  feeds  the  birds,  we  must  wonder 
why  so  many  of  them  die  on  the  snow.  If  we  believe 
in  the  great  Physician,  we  must  account  for  the 
horrors  brought  to  light  in  the  operating-theatre. 
But  if  for  their  difficulties  we  lay  aside  these  beliefs, 
we  are  left  with  the  giant  difficulty  of  a  God  who 
does  not  reveal  Himself,  who  never  did  and  never  will 
'  rend  the  heavens  and  come  down/  who  answers  no 
prayer  and  works  no  miracle. 

•  t  •  •  •  • 

After  all  their  questioning  men  are  still  ready  to 
listen  to  Jesus.  It  says  much  for  His  authority  that 
He  recognized  the  difficulty,  and  more  that  He 
endured  a  life  singularly  filled  with  mysterious  pain 
and  yet  never  swerved  from  this  Galilean  teaching. 
He  offers  a  bold  doctrine  for  faith  to  cling  to  and  for 
hope  to  build  upon.  The  God  of  Nature  is  one  with 
the  God  of  Grace,  and  He  is  '  your  Father  which  is 
in  heaven.'      The   Father  who   gives  'good   things* 

64 


The  Two  Hands  of  God 

gives  also  pain  and  trial  and  those  conditions  in 
which  our  wayward  hearts  find  temptation.  Shall 
not  these,  then,  also  prove  good  things  in  their  final 
issue?  If  we  still  talk  of  Nature — "tis  she  whose 
hand  God's  mightier  hand  doth  hold/  Nay,  we  must 
go  further  to  keep  abreast  of  this  teaching.  If  the  Old 
Testament  writers  ascribed  God's  great  deliverances 
to  His  strong  right  hand,  we  may  say  that  Nature  is 
His  left  hand. 

Observe  how  closely  the  figure  of  speech  fits 
these  two  verses.  A  left  hand  is  always  compara- 
tively indiscriminating.  It  does  not  express  character 
and  personality  forcibly.  It  is  unoriginal  in  action, 
guided  chiefly  by  habit  and  instinct.  It  attempts  no 
fine  work,  but  merely  answers  general  purposes.  Such 
is  Nature.  The  right  hand,  on  the  contrary,  is  the 
strong,  original,  dexterous  member.  It  expresses 
purpose  fully,  distinguishes  clearly,  and  adapts  itself 
to  subtle  details  of  delicate  work.  It  writes  a  man's 
self-revealing  letters  and  gives  the  clasp  of  friendship 
and  the  lingering  pressure  of  love.  Such  is  Grace 
Yet  both  hands  are  ruled  by  one  mind  and  most 
perfectly  co-operate.     Such  are  the  ways  of  God. 

This  great  doctrine  cannot  be  proved  except  by 
life.  We  are  like  children  on  the  station  platform, 
told  by  their  elders  that  the  shining  railway  lines  of 
which  they  see  a  hundred  yards  or  so  carry  trains  and 

E  65 


The  Two  Hands  of  God 

their  passengers  safely  to  London.  Like  them  we 
may  believe  and  try,  and  so  reach  the  only  possible 
proof — '  experience  worketh  hope.'  This  teaching  has 
carried  many  trustful  folk  very  safely  as  far  as  earthly 
eyes  could  follow  them.  They  asked  few  questions 
and  put  forth  great  prayers.  When  dark  times  befell 
them  they  said  of  the  stroke  or  the  sorrow  :  '  It  is  the 
Lord  :  let  Him  do  what  seemeth  Him  good/  So  did 
patience  and  hope  keep  their  hearts  superior  to  evil  for- 
tune till  brighter  days  returned.  Either  there  is  some- 
thing wondrously  kind  in  Nature  or  something  mightily 
healing  and  sustaining  in  Grace.  We  may  well 
believe  that  in  both  there  works  the  will  of  'your 
Father  which  is  in  heaven.' 

A  few  important  results  follow,  which  may  be 
briefly  expressed  though  they  are  hard  to  classify. 

To  those  who  believe  our  Lords  teaching  it  becomes 
something  like  a  blasphemy  to  talk  of  the  cruelty  of 
Nature,  and  a  needless  blasphemy  because  we  may 
well  hope  that  it  is  not  true.  If  God  the  Father 
Almighty  is  also  Maker  of  heaven  and  earth, 
the  one  purpose  of  redeeming  mercy  must  underlie 
both  Nature  and  Grace.  It  is  not  merely  that  there 
will  be  found  here  and  there  in  Nature  tokens  of  mercy 
like  a  rainbow  on  a  black  sky.  That  is,  of  course,  a  plain 
fact.  The  inexorable  constancy  of  the  natural  order 
is  the  condition  upon  which  we  keep  our  reason.     The 

66 


The  Two  Hands  of  God 

rains  and  fruitful  seasons  never  finally  disappoint  the 
true  worker.  Even  disease  has  its  ' laws '  which  render 
treatment  possible  and  discovery  hopeful.  Through 
the  whole  creation  there  is  doubtless  an  intensity  of 
enjoyment  which  we  forget  in  thinking  of  the  harrow- 
ing exceptions ;  and  our  very  protest  against  the 
exceptional  pain  proves  our  faith  that  comfort  is 
normal.  Ifsuchafaith  has  survived  the  chequered 
ages  it  goes  far  to  vindicate  God's  merciful  govern- 
ment. Modern  research  points  towards  the  truth 
that  the  capacity  for  pain  is  never  developed  beyond 
what  is  useful  to  life.  Of  course,  when  that  statement 
is  carried  forward  into  human  experience  with  its 
network  of  affections,  every  one  of  which  is  a  nerve  for 
joy  and  sorrow  to  touch,  we  must  remember  that  here 
is  a  higher  life  to  be  engendered  and  developed. 
Keeping  that  in  view  we  may  well  believe  that  God 
permits  even  to  us  no  useless  pain.  Without  suffering 
tenderness  could  not  arise,  and  the  suffering  of  one 
makes  many  tender.  Danger  must  come  before 
heroism.  Could  souls  grow  in  a  world  where  '  Blessed 
are  they  that  mourn' was  unintelligible  ?  Even  the  most 
perplexing  fact  of  all,  the  passing  of  suffering  from  the 
guilty  to  the  innocent,  adds  to  the  sanctity  of  our  moral 
obligations  and  helps  to  make  life  holy  and  love  deep. 
Strictly  personal  chastisement  might  deter  merely 
prudent  minds,  but  that  punishment  alone  ennobles 
e  2  67 


The  Two  Hands  of  God 

which  appeals  to  our  affection  and  moves  us  to  ask 
with  David,  *  These  sheep,  what  have  they  done  ? ' 
All  human  suffering  may  indeed  become  very  like 
wanton  cruelty  if  we  turn  away  from  the  high  purpose 
for  which  our  life  was  given,  but  in  that  case  we  make 
the  cruelty  for  ourselves  by  rendering  the  discipline 
useless.  If,  however,  we  use  Grace  to  interpret 
Nature  it  will  be  seen  more  and  more  clearly  that 
Nature  plays  into  the  hand  of  Grace. 

Nature,  in  fact,  sets  a  common  standard  for  all. 
Her  uniformity  and  her  hardship  amount  to  that ; 
and  we  know  the  value  of  a  common  standard.  Boys 
of  very  diverse  capacity  use  the  same  textbook  and 
take  the  same  examination  paper.  The  standard 
cannot  be  lowered,  though  the  teacher  is  at  liberty  to 
give  special  help  to  backward  scholars.  If  a  boy  fails 
in  the  examination  after  honest  effort,  he  does  not  lose 
the  esteem  of  his  teacher  nor  the  success  which  rewards 
good  effort  in  the  great  world  out  of  school.  Nature's 
standard  requires  a  far  higher  level  of  knowledge  than 
has  yet  been  gained,  and  there  must  be  generations  of 
clean  living  and  ordered  effort  before  men  can  pass 
through  life  with  complete  joy.  That  prize  is  for 
others  yet  unborn.  At  present  we  are  all  backward 
scholars,  and  we  all  fail  in  some  subjects  though 
taught  by  the  Spirit  of  Grace,  but  we  need  not  lose 
His  friendship  nor  the  rewards  that  come  when  school 

68 


The  Two  Hands  of  God 

is  over.  And  every  life  of  true  endeavour  leaves  the 
race  nearer  attainment. 

Again,  those  who  believe  Christ 's  doctrine  will  pray 
about  everything — even  the  weather  if  it  concerns 
them.  Nothing  is  more  foolish  than  to  limit  prayer, 
as,  for  example,  by  saying  that  we  may  pray  for  pardon 
but  not  for  much-needed  money,  for  the  Holy  Spirit 
but  not  for  a  fine  day.  Leave  those  distinctions  for 
God  to  make  in  His  answering.  Simple  minds  ask  for 
what  they  want,  and  if  it  does  not  come  they  conclude 
that  either  it  was  not  a  good  thing  for  them  or  that  the 
contrary  was  better  for  somebody  else.  So  they  keep 
in  the  way  of  miracles  and  often  find,  like  him  sick 
of  the  palsy,  that  the  trifling  earthly  boon  is  given  as 
a  sacrament  of  spiritual  blessing. 

It  also  appears  from  this  teaching  that  the  old 
supposed  opposition  between  natural  and  spiritual  means 
to  a  good  end  is  unreal  Some  fantastic  folk  say  that 
trust  in  the  doctor  and  his  treatment  implies  distrust  of 
God.  There  are  those  even  in  the  present  day  who 
have  a  religion  which  finds  no  place  for  self-reliance 
and  that  assured  confidence  in  our  own  faculties 
which  makes  the  joy  of  effort.  The  supernatural 
overshadows  them  and  the  First  Cause  fills  their 
thoughts,  excluding  from  attention  the  multitude  of 
second  causes  in  the  control  of  which  man  can  exercise 
his  skill  with  delight.     Theirs  is  perhaps  the  safest 

69 


The  Two  Hands  of  God 

extreme,  but  it  is  an  extreme,  and  the  modern  instinct 
revolts  from  it.  Human  personality  craves  expression 
and  asks  liberty,  responsibility,  adventure,  for  by  these 
things  it  grows.  And  the  supreme  Wisdom  is  not 
likely  to  refuse.  Students  of  child  life  emphasize  the 
value  of  playtime,  when  the  teacher's  eye  is  no  longer 
on  the  learner,  and  he  is  left  free  to  initiate  action,  to 
think  for  himself,  and  give  and  take  hard  knocks  in 
the  cause  of  school-boy  justice.  For  a  like  end — that 
His  scholars  may  grow  up — God  in  Nature  veils  His 
purposes,  setting  a  wide  arena  for  effort  and  competi- 
tion, offering  a  splendid  freedom  to  enterprise,  and 
letting  man  find  his  own  path  by  wise  and  great 
striving.  In  this  way  true  manhood  is  attained.  If 
Nature  is  one  of  God's  hands,  a  timely  and  reverent 
trust  in  her  order  is  part  of  our  faith  in  Him. 

As  we  ponder  this  great  matter  instruction  will 
spread  both  ways.  Grace  must  interpret  Nature,  but 
Nature  reminds  us  of  neglected  truths  about  the  God 
of  Grace.  If  He  is  inexorable  in  one  sphere  He  is  the 
same  God  in  both.  There  are  fatal  lengths  of  trans- 
gression in  physical  things :  can  we  think,  then,  that 
the  Grace  of  such  a  God  is  to  be  trifled  with  ?  The 
world  to-day  is  in  some  danger  of  thinking  so.  Men 
trade  upon  His  fatherhood  to  indulge  their  weaknesses. 
They  would  claim  His  mercy  without  subscribing  to 
His  covenant.     It  may  not  be.     Nature's  first  m>rd  is 

70 


The  Two  Hands  of  God 

'  Obey ! '  and  God  never  changes  that  demand  for  any 
plea  of  ours,  though  He  will  marvellously  help  the 
prayerful  man  to  meet  it. 

I  saw  a  boy  carving  a  face  upon  a  stick  from  the 
hedgerow.  His  left  hand  held  the  stick  very  firmly 
lest  it  should  turn  and  the  knife  slip,  while  his  right 
hand  shaped  and  smoothed  the  features.  The  left 
hand  performed  an  office  lowly  but  essential :  the 
right  hand  did  the  work.  That  trifling  scene  may  be 
taken  as  a  true  illustration.  On  some  distant  morning 
when  we  awake  with  His  likeness  it  will  be  found  that 
the  blind,  unyielding  grip  of  Nature,  its  inevitable 
effects  and  its  so-called  accidents,  have  helped  to 
express  with  exquisite  fidelity  the  will  of  God  for  our 
small  lives.  We  cannot  escape  that  left  Hand :  let 
us  take  heed  that  we  miss  not  the  right  Hand  of 
Grace. 


7i 


VI 

THE  WAY  OF  PEACE 


VI 
The  Way  of  Peace 

And  Abraham  said,  God  will  prepare  Himself  the  lamb  for  a  burnt 
offering,  my  son. — Gen.  xxii.  8. 

AN  obvious  difficulty  besets  this  most   poignant 
of  all  Old  Testament   stories— is   it   not   too 
cruel?     Can   we  believe   that    the    Eternal    Father 
would    test   an   earthly   father's   obedience    by   thus 
torturing   the    finest    nerve    in    his    moral    nature? 
Those  questions  stir  far-reaching  thoughts.     It  is  as 
impossible  to  banish  all  appearance  of  cruelty  from 
God's  historical  providence  as  it  is  to  blind  ourselves 
to  a  seeming  cruelty  in  Nature.     Sin   is   cruel   and 
ignorance  is  cruel,  and  when  the  divine  Will  reacts 
upon  these  things  there  will  be  great  suffering  :  other- 
wise men  would  never  revolt  against  sin  or  struggle 
out   of  ignorance.     Yet   such   suffering   is    exalting 
beyond  all  comparison,  and  in  the  depths  of  it  may 
be   found    the   wonderful    mercy     of  'the    Celestial 
Surgeon/  setting  wrong  right ;  for  if  '  the  foolishness 
of  God  is  wiser  than  men/  the  cruelty  of  God  is  kinder 
than  men.    All  that  we  can  do  is  so  to  focus  this  story 

75 


The  Way  of  Peace 

as  to  show  that  sin  and  ignorance  had  as  much  to  do 
with  the  complicating  of  Abraham's  terrible  problem 
as  divine  mercy  had  to  do  with  unravelling  it. 

As  a  first  step  in  explanation  we  find  the  testimony 
of  the  Altar,  that  immemorial  feature  of  man's  inter- 
course with  God.  There  is  an  instinct  of  sacrifice. 
Never  have  His  creatures  dared  to  seek  God's  presence 
empty-handed.  Indeed,  there  has  been  a  rivalry  in 
this  matter,  for  if  sacrifice  can  win  peace,  the  costliest 
gift  will  be  the  surest.  From  this  cause  it  comes  to 
pass  that  every  great  love  is  shadowed  by  a  great  fear. 
An  ineradicable  touch  of  superstition  makes  every 
man  tremble  for  his  nearest  and  dearest  lest  God 
should  claim  that  one  from  him.  This  is  superstition 
because  it  travesties  the  nature  and  motive  of  God, 
but  it  is  ineradicable  because  the  claim  is  real. 

Now  without  doubt,  in  the  ancient  land  where 
Abraham  dwelt  men  were  recognizing  that  claim 
in  blindest  literalism  and  with  a  hopeless  stoicism  by 
offering  their  children  as  dying  sacrifices.  He  was 
perfectly  familiar  with  the  practice,  and  such  examples 
would  have  a  certain  influence,  for  though  spiritual 
faith  comes  from  heaven,  forms  of  worship  are  learned 
by  imitation.  Reverence  is  of  the  Spirit,  but  we 
should  not  think  to  show  reverence  by  baring  our 
heads  in  church  if  we  had  not  seen  others  do  it. 
What  wonder  then  if  love  and  fear  began  to  whisper 

76 


The  Way  of  Peace 

in  Abraham's  heart  the  dreadful  suggestion,  and 
whispered  on  until  it  became  a  conviction,  that  God 
wanted  this  supreme  proof  from  him  ?  So  much 
did  natural  ignorance  contribute  to  the  trial. 

But  there  is  something  deeper  and  more  personal 
to  be  said.  Abraham's  undivided  joy  in  the  child  of 
the  promise  was  only  secured  by  the  most  painful  act 
of  his  life.  For  Isaac's  sake  he  had  cast  Hagar 
and  Ishmael  into  the  desert.  We  may  not  count  that 
for  a  sin,  but  it  was  an  outcome  of  sin.  Abraham's 
gravest  error  took  place  when  in  an  hour  of  unbelief 
and  impatience  he  tired  of  waiting  for  God  and  joined 
himself  to  Hagar  as  a  short  cut  to  the  promise. 
Therein,  not  for  the  first  time,  the  stately  constancy 
of  his  faith  was  overcome  by  his  native  aptitude  for 
worldly  policy.  And  the  sin  at  last  found  him  out 
by  means  of  a  heartrending  consequence,  for  he 
could  only  extricate  himself  from  a  false  position  by 
doing  wrong  to  a  woman  who  had  trusted  him  and 
by  casting  off  a  son  who  shared  his  love.  That 
gnawed  upon  Abraham's  heart.  As  the  pain  returned 
time  after  time  the  question  would  rise  within  him — 
c  What  right  have  I  to  my  joy  in  Isaac  ?  Is  it  not 
purchased  by  untruth  and  cruelty — made  safe  by 
wrong  to  other  innocent  ones?  If  ever  a  man  was 
called  to  sacrifice  the  fruit  of  his  body  for  the  sin  of 
his  soul,  I  am  that  man/ 

77 


The  Way  of  Peace 

This  chapter,  then,  shows  a  picture  of  a  resolute  and 
conscientious  man  setting  out  to  make  his  own  peace 
with  God.  The  idea  was  natural  though  profoundly 
mistaken,  and  God  let  him  go  a  long  way  with  it. 
The  man  had  chosen  his  ground  by  instinct  and  by 
imperfect  knowledge,  and  he  must  be  tested  on  that 
ground  first,  before  being  led  to  a  higher.  But  ah, 
the  bitterness  of  that  journey !  Abraham  is  like 
Cranmer  at  the  stake — *  This  hand  sinned  .  .  .  this 
hand  must  first  suffer.  This  hand  pointed  Hagar  and 
Ishmael  to  the  hopeless  desert  .  .  .  this  hand  shall 
drive  hom«  the  knife.  The  light  in  my  boy's  eyes 
will  be  suddenly  quenched  ...  his  young  limbs  will 
relax  .  .  .  his  voice  fall  dumb.  I  must  go  home  alone. 
No  more  eager  questions — no  more  laughing  wel- 
comes— only  an  everlasting  silence  and  justice  done.' 
Isaac  made  it  no  easier  by  his  artless  talk.  *  My 
father  ! '  '  Here  am  I,  my  son.'  '  Behold  the  fire  and 
the  wood,  but  where  is  the  lamb  for  the  burnt  offer- 
ing ? '  And  Abraham,  willing  to  cheer  the  lad  but  seeing 
no  comfort  for  himself,  makes  answer,  '  God  will  pro- 
vide Himself  the  lamb  for  a  burnt  offering,  my  son.' 
A  mockery  of  words  to  him  who  spoke,  yet  eternally 
true.  God  is  very  wonderful  who  can  wring  from  the 
despairs  of  His  people  unwitting  prophecies  of  His 
great  compassion. 

There  is  a  strange  grandeur  about  this  august  and 
78 


The  Way  of  Peace 

lonely  man  so  bent  on  finding  peace  with  God.  Has 
he  anything  in  common  with  our  pleasant,  well-bred, 
modern  life  ?  Men  talk  much  about  the  importance 
of  peace  with  Germany  and  peace  in  our  industrial 
world  at  home,  but  who  talks  of  peace  with  God  ? 
We  cannot  tell,  for  it  is  not  a  subject  to  be  lightly 
talked  about.  But  Abraham's  question  is  the  first  and 
the  last  for  the  human  heart — the  very  Alpha  and 
Omega  of  our  searching.  Behind  the  scenes  many  are 
wrestling  with  it.  Now  and  then  at  night-time  in  a 
quiet  room  after  a  weary  day  and  when  the  household 
is  asleep,  a  man  thinks  of  these  things.  Business  has 
not  gone  smoothly,  nor  has  he  felt  so  well  that  day. 
Life  just  then  looks  frail  and  unsatisfying  and  brief, 
and  the  end  of  it  can  be  foreseen.  In  such  an  hour 
his  sin  is  apt  to  find  him  out  and  pose  him  with  its 
thorny  problem.  The  deed  of  folly  and  the  untruth 
and  the  mad  indulgence  come  to  mind  :  the  tightening 
chain  of  habit  is  felt :  he  suspects  deterioration  in  him- 
self. Believing  prayer — how  difficult  it  has  become ! 
And  in  the  midst  of  these  thoughts,  the  centre  from 
which  they  spring,  round  which  they  travel,  to  which 
they  all  return,  is  an  utter  longing  for  peace  with  God 
and  rest  unto  the  soul. 

•  •  •  • 

It  is  time  to  read  the  sequel.     Abraham  carried  his 
purpose  to  the  very  verge  of  tragedy,  and  then  God 

79 


The  Way  of  Peace 

stopped  him.  The  sacrifice  was  set  aside  as  irrelevant 
and  unavailing  for  the  main  purpose.  For  the  costly- 
offering  of  the  dear  son  God  substituted  a  com- 
paratively worthless  animal  which  He  Himself 
provided. 

The  magic  lies  in  that — God  provided  it.  None 
but  God  can  meet  God  on  even  terms  and  satisfy  Him. 
Abraham  was  mistaken,  nobly  but  completely.  Man 
cannot  atone  or  make  amends.  That  was  true  in 
this  history  even  within  the  human  relationships. 
Hagar  and  Ishmael  were  gone  to  the  desert  to  meet 
what  fate  it  held  for  them.  Tears  cannot  blot  out 
history  or  cleanse  the  hour  that  is  fled.  Of  course 
Abraham  knew  this,  and  he  had  left  that  part  of  the 
matter.  His  sacrifice  was  designed  to  bring  peace 
back  to  his  own  heart  by  self-punishment,  but  would 
it  have  done  even  that  ?  I  think  not.  A  certain  fierce 
self-righteousness  might  have  come,  but  not  the  peace 
that  passeth  understanding,  in  which  the  heart  grows 
soft  and  wise  and  the  day  of  life  mellows  tenderly  to 
the  gloaming. 

God  alone  can  satisfy  God :  and  the  true  reason  lies 
deeper  than  difficulties  of  chronology.  If  man  could 
atone  and  make  amends,  sin  would  be  a  very  little 
thing,  no  larger  than  a  man's  hand ;  and  if  sin  were 
very  little  it  could  only  be  because  man  was  very  little 
and  his  life  without  sublimity.     Whereas  something 

80 


The  Way  of  Peace 

ever  tells  us  that  sin  is  an  all  but  infinite  evil,  a  dis- 
ordering of  the  very  springs  of  being. 

A  robin  redbreast  in  a  cage 
Puts  all  heaven  in  a  rage  : 
A  skylark  wounded  on  the  wing 
Doth  make  a  cherub  cease  to  sing. 

We  small  people  may  go  to  war  with  God's  eternal 
purpose  and  do  mischief  which  we  can  never  under- 
stand. And  only  One  who  does  understand  sin  in  all 
its  scope  and  significance  can  offer  that  sufficient 
sacrifice  of  holy  obedience  and  acknowledgement  and 
submission  whereby  righteousness  is  exalted  as  the 
desire  and  the  goal  and  the  reward  of  men  unto  all 
generations.  Therefore  God  kept  that  matter  of 
atonement  in  His  own  hands  and  provided  the  Lamb 
— the  Lamb  of  God  which  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the 
world.  We  look  at  the  Cross  and  say,  '  It  took  that 
to  show  God's  feeling  against  sin.'  And  never  since 
that  Cross  was  set  up  have  men  been  able  to  think  sin 
a  little  thing. 

Having  shown  that,  God  turns  with  an  abandon- 
ment of  tenderness  to  labouring  souls  in  Abraham's 
case.  It  is  the  surprise  of  mercy.  They  have  strained 
their  poor  resources  to  meet  His  requirement,  and  lo  ! 
He  has  met  it  Himself.  What  He  really  asks  is  so 
different  from  their  thoughts. 
f  81 


The  Way  of  Peace 

Offer  unto  God  the  sacrifice  of  thanksgiving; 
And  pay  thy  vows  unto  the  Most  High : 
And  call  upon  Me  in  the  day  of  trouble ; 
I  will  deliver  thee,  and  thou  shalt  glorify  Me. 

That  is  absolutely  and  marvellously  all — no  labour 
set,  no  penance  exacted,  no  responsibility  imposed, 
as  the  condition  of  forgiveness.  These  will  not  be 
lacking  in  the  redeemed  life,  but  they  will  come  to  pass 
joyously  as  the  result  of  forgiveness  and  the  leading  of 
the  Spirit.  The  heart  will  take  to  them  instinctively 
in  its  ecstasy  of  relief.  And  there  are  intense  moments 
when  the  seeker  after  peace  should  concern  himself 
not  at  all  with  these  results,  but  solely  with  the  finished 
work  of  Christ  which  makes  him,  by  dint  of  his  simple 
trust  in  it,  a  beloved  child  of  God.  For  if  he  is  cer- 
tainly a  child  of  God  by  this  free  gift  he  will  as  certainly 
grow  into  saintliness. 

We  do  not  know  much  about  Abraham's  home- 
coming, but  we  are  very  sure  that  the  sacrifice  of 
thanksgiving  was  abundant  in  his  life  thereafter,  and 
that  his  old  faith  became  magnified  into  an  everlasting 
delight  in  God,  and  that  wilful  sin  was  impossible  to 
him  from  that  time  forward.  So  doth  grace  work. 
That  revelation  of  the  Father  was  essentially  the  same 
as  comes  to  men  to-day  when  they  find  themselves  in 
the  circle  of  the  defeated  and  the  fearful  and  the  self- 
wearied  and  the  child-hearted.     The  hem  of  His  gar- 

82 


The  Way  of  Peace 

ment  may  serve  at  other  times,  but  in  those  great 
moments  they  need  the  truth  which  lies  in  the  bosom  of 
the  mystery  of  Jesus — this  divine  act  of  sin-bearing 
which  takes  away  all  guilt  and  bestows  all  the  privi- 
leges if  men  will  but  have  them.  Then  the  penitent 
can  say  with  John  Bunyan,  '  I  saw  that  it  was  not  my 
good  frame  of  heart  that  made  my  righteousness 
better,  nor  yet  my  bad  frame  of  heart  that  made  my 
righteousness  worse ;  for  my  righteousness  was  Jesus 
Christ  Himself,  the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and  for 
ever.'  And  the  same  message  which  brings  him  peace 
brings  him  power,  for  he  can  also  say  with  Luther, 
'  When  I  have  this  within,  I  descend  from  heaven,  as 
the  rain  which  fructifies  the  earth  ;  that  is,  I  go  forth 
into  another  kingdom  and  do  good  works  whenever  an 
occasion  offers.  .  .  .  Whosoever  really  knows  Christ 
to  be  his  righteousness,  from  the  heart  and  with  joy 
doeth  well  in  his  vocation,  for  he  knows  that  this  is 
the  will  of  God  and  that  this  obedience  is  pleasing 
to  Him/ 


«3 


VII 

THE  CHAMBER  OF  THE  SPIRIT 


VII 

The  Chamber  of  the  Spirit 

Let  us  make,  I  pray  thee,  a  little  chamber  on  the  wall ;  and  let  us  set  for 
him  there  a  bed,  and  a  table,  and  a  stool,  and  a  candlestick ;  and  it 
shall  be,  when  he  cotneth  to  us,  that  he  shall  turn  in  thither. — 2  Kings 
iv.  10. 

IS  it  possible  to  have  going  on  in  the  Church  very 
much  well-intentioned  prayer  for  the  Holy 
Spirit's  power  without  corresponding  evidences  of  His 
triumphant  indwelling  ?  Can  prayer  for  this  blessing 
go  partly  unanswered  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  our 
Lord's  most  definite  assurances  are  given  to  such 
prayers?  If  it  can,  we  may  find  here  an  explanation 
of  some  perplexing  features  of  Church  life.  Making 
full  allowance  for  the  '  diversities  of  gifts/  which 
doubtless  include  some  that  we  do  not  easily  recognize, 
we  yet  feel  that  the  Church  is  often  jaded  rather  than 
joyous — less  fruitful  in  works  of  victory  and  less 
conscious  of  abundant  life  than  she  would  be  if  filled 
with  the  Spirit.  This  impression  sends  us  back  to 
consider  the  quality  and  conditions  of  our  prayers. 
What  fault  lies  in  our  asking  ?  What  can  we  do  to 
make  supplication  more  effective  ?  Perhaps  if  we  allow 
ourselves  liberty  to  treat  this  tender  Old  Testament 

87 


The  Chamber  of  the  Spirit 

story  of  the  Shunammite  as  a  parable  of  prayer  and 
preparation  it  may  furnish  a  hint. 

The  great  woman  had  come  to  know  the  prophet 
as  a  visitor,  and  the  comfort  of  those  occasional  inter- 
views had  set  her  longing  for  much  more,  even  for  the 
frequent  presence  and  continual  benison  of  the  godly 
man.  She  wanted  the  fullness  of  his  friendship  and  a 
secure  hold  upon  his  influence.  So  she  stirred  up  her 
rather  colourless  husband  and  they  made  a  little 
chamber  on  the  wall,  furnishing  it  plainly,  as  for  a 
man  of  God  and  not  of  the  world,  with  a  table  and  a 
bed  and  a  stool  and  a  candlestick.  It  was  to  be  Elisha's 
own  room  where  he  might  dwell  unmolested  ;  but,  of 
course,  his  blessing  was  to  rest  upon  the  whole  house 
and  extend  even  to  the  fields  and  the  crops.  Such 
was  the  woman's  simple  appeal  for  the  divine  favour. 
And  the  prophet  was  so  touched  by  this  devout 
attention  that  he  gave  her  more  than  she  dared  to  ask, 
and  thenceforward  undreamed-of  joys  and  sorrows 
came  to  her  in  that  little  room.  The  drama  of  her 
wonderfully  enlarged  future  acted  itself  out  in  that 
consecrated  chamber.  The  child  of  her  old  age  was 
promised  there :  there  she  laid  him  when  he  died  ;  and 
there  also  this  woman  received  her  dead  raised  to  life 
again.  These  vital  experiences  began  not  with  a  mere 
asking  but  with  a  thoughtful  and  comprehensive  act 
of  preparation. 

88 


The  Chamber  of  the  Spirit 

Such  is  a  story  which  shows  a  close  parallel  to  our 
position.  We  indeed  seek  not  a  prophet,  but  we  do 
seek  that  Spirit  who  made  prophets.   Of  Him  we  say — 

O  that  the  Comforter  would  come ! 

Nor  visit  as  a  transient  guest, 
But  fix  in  me  His  constant  home, 

And  take  possession  of  my  breast. 

We  beseech  Him  directly  in  words  like  these— 

With  clearer  light  Thy  witness  bear, 
More  sensibly  within  me  live. 

Does  it  not  too  often  end  with  the  mere  asking  ?  With 
many  of  us  such  prayers  are  the  utterances  of  a 
variable  enthusiasm,  whereas  they  ought  to  be  the 
solemn  expression  of  our  steadfast  will,  evidenced  by  a 
methodical  preparation  affecting  our  whole  conscious 
life.  We  might  do  so  m  uch  more.  It  is  not  as  if  we  were 
seeking  an  altogether  strange,  ecstatic,  and  magical 
gift,  the  conditions  and  use  of  which  we  knew  not, 
and  in  the  bringing  of  which  we  could  not  co-operate. 
At  every  stage  of  religious  experience  there  is  some- 
thing to  be  done  and  something  to  be  waited  for.  If 
we  forget  the  waiting  our  doing  becomes  fruitless :  if 
we  ignore  the  doing  our  waiting  becomes  aimless.  In 
this  matter  of  receiving  the  Holy  Spirit  words  with- 
out deeds  are  even  more  futile  than  deeds  without 
words.  We  must  ourselves  complete  the  parallel  with 
the  Shunammite  woman.     There  is  a  chamber  to  be 

89 


The  Chamber  of  the  Spirit 

prepared — a  candle  to  be  lighted — as  an  earnest  of 
welcome.  In  social  life  the  general  invitation  has  a 
useful  place,  but  only  when  the  definite  invitation  has 
guaranteed  real  hospitality.  Till  then  it  is  a  mockery. 
We  must  not  be  content  to  offer  general  invitations 
to  the  Spirit  of  God. 

This  task  of  preparation  is  inward  as  well  as  out- 
ward. There  must  be  a  chamber  for  the  Spirit  within 
ourselves  and  also  a  sphere  for  Him  in  our  programme 
of  active  life.  And  the  inward  chamber  is,  of  course, 
the  cleansed  and  furnished  and  consecrated  mind. 
The  Holy  Spirit,  truly,  is  not  restricted  to  the  mind. 
His  energy  is  the  force  of  the  universe  by  which  the 
stars  swing  and  the  waves  break  and  the  blossom 
opens.  By  Him  the  blood  circulates  and  the  nerves 
thrill,  because,  in  the  widest  possible  sense,  God  is 
the  strength  of  our  life.  Nevertheless,  for  purposes  of 
salvation  '  the  Spirit  beareth  witness  with  our  spirit! 
and  for  intelligent  communion  we  can  meet  Him  only 
in  our  intelligence.  Evidently,  then,  in  order  to  meet 
Him  we  must  dwell  there  ourselves — in  the  highest 
part  of  our  nature.  The  chamber  must  be  on  the  wall, 
not  in  the  basement ;  for  the  Paraclete  still  loves  the 
upper  room. 

There  are  many  other  rooms  in  the  great  house  of 
a  man's  nature.  The  foundations  lie  deep  in  physical 
things ;     the  ground   floor   is    open   to   the   World's 

90 


The  Chamber  of  the  Spirit 

business  like  a  shop  ;  the  living-rooms  of  family  love 
and  social  intercourse  are  higher  still.  But  above  all 
is  the  chamber  under  the  stars,  the  upper  story 
which  no  creature  but  man  possesses,  the  quiet  room 
of  devout  and  wise  reflection  where  one  is  alone 
with  God,  where  earthly  details  look  small  and  the 
issues  of  life  are  seen.  All  the  rooms  are  made  to  be 
hallowed,  and  none  is  ignoble.  In  some  degree  we 
dwell  in  all  of  them  at  the  same  time.  But  one 
is  the  room  of  our  heart,  of  our  choice,  of  our  habit, 
and  from  it  the  house  is  ruled.  Every  man  is  some- 
thing first  and  foremost — a  merchant,  an  artist,  a 
lover  of  ease,  a  saint.  It  depends  on  the  chamber  in 
which  he  chooses  to  live  most  intensely.  The  Spirit 
can  deal  freely  only  with  him  who  seeks  to  live  in 
his  highest  capacities. 

This  truth  is  elementary ;  but  when  we  fail  it  is 
always  in  the  elementary  matters.  We  have,  of 
course,  often  visited  that  upper  room.  We  could  not 
be  believers  at  all  unless  it  had  been  opened  to  the 
light.  But  there  are  many  dangers.  The  shop-bell 
rings  almost  constantly  and  it  is  a  great  trouble 
to  climb  the  stairs  so  often.  Why  not  stay  nearer 
the  shop  ?  It  may  only  too  easily  come  to  pass  that 
we  think  it  but  a  slight  shame  to  take  our 
motives  even  from  the  flesh  and  allow  imagination  to 
hang   unholy  pictures  in  the  chamber  of  reflection. 

9i 


The  Chamber  of  the  Spirit 

There  is  no  Spirit's  chamber  then  in  all  the  house. 
No  doubt  for  every  wanton  thought  and  worldly 
dream  we  pay  a  very  exact  penalty  in  the  loss  of  that 
divine  Presence,  and  it  is  likely  that  the  misuse  of  a 
particular  faculty  paralyses  that  very  faculty  for 
God's  use.  Perhaps  that  is  why  many  cannot  image 
Jesus  so  clearly  as  they  wish.  The  imagination  has 
been  abused. 

If  any  one  points  out  here  that  the  intelligent  will- 
ingness to  live  in  the  highest  that  we  can  understand 
is  itself  the  work  of  the  Spirit,  his  word  is  true.  The 
woman  could  not  desire  the  prophet  until  she  had 
made  his  acquaintance.  We  receive  the  Spirit's 
visits  unconditionally,  and  the  initial  power  to  plan 
and  plead  for  His  constant  indwelling  is  already  ours. 
Therefore  it  is  our  turn  to  move.  He  will  not  claim 
and  seize  us  permanently  and  fully  without  our  very 
practical  consent. 

Equally  important  is  it  that  we  have  a  sphere  for 
the  Spirit  in  our  programme  of  activities.  He  will 
not  come  where  there  is  nothing  for  Him  to  do. 

In  my  old  home  long  ago  there  was  a  locked 
drawer  where  the  mystery  of  grown-up  life  seemed  to 
centre.  The  household  cash-box  lay  there,  and  so 
did  certain  other  things  which  my  childish  fingers 
itched  to  handle — one  or  two  coins  and  medallions 
and  heirlooms  of  small  value.     Among  the  rest  was  a 

92 


The  Chamber  of  the  Spirit 

sailor's  cornelian  ring  and  seal  which  belonged  to 
some  seafaring  ancestor,  and  this  I  coveted  ardently 
and  often  begged  for.  But  the  guardian  of  the 
drawer  would  always  say  in  her  tone  of  gentle  remon- 
strance, '  My  boy,  you  cannot  write  yet,  you  must 
wait  until  you  can  use  it.'  How  often  God  might 
make  that  reply  to  our  prayers  for  the  gift  of  His 
Spirit !  A  man  prays  in  the  prayer-meeting  for  the 
Spirit,  and  goes  forth  to  be  engrossed  in  money-making 
all  the  week.  He  needs  no  Holy  Spirit  for  that  if  his 
motive  is  all  worldly.  Another  prays,  and  then  lives 
contentedly  for  the  pleasures  of  the  hour.  The  Spirit's 
power  is  not  necessary  to  trifling.  What  wonder  if 
God  says,  '  You  must  wait  until  you  can  use  it '  ? 
The  discrepancy  between  the  prayer  and  the  purpose 
is  too  great.  God  will  give  us  the  Spirit  as  freely  as 
we  give  our  children  bread.  True,  but  a  hungry  lad 
has  a  singularly  good  and  intelligent  use  for  a  loaf. 
If  we  are  half  so  clear  as  to  what  we  mean  to  do  in 
the  power  of  the  Spirit  our  prayer  will  not  be  refused. 
Make  a  noble  programme.  Fear  not  to  put  your  arm 
out  farther  than  you  can  draw  it  back.  Take  up  a, 
duty  in  which  you  must  fail  if  He  fails  you.  Exult 
in  difficulty  as  St.  Paul  did  when  he  said,  *  A  great 
door  and  effectual  is  opened  unto  me,  and  there  are 
many  adversaries.'  You  will  find  that  the  Spirit  is 
not  less  adventurous  than  His  poor  servants. 

93 


VIII 
THE  REWARD  OF   LOVE 


VIII 

The  Reward  of  Love 

AN   EASTER-MORNING  PICTURE 

Jesus  saith  unto  her,  Mary.     She  turneth  herselj,  and  saith  unto  Him 
in  Hebrew,  Rabboni ;  which  is  to  say,  Master. — John  xx.  1 6. 

IT  was  the  appearances  of  the  risen  Saviour  which 
first  exalted  the  life  and  words  and  death  of 
Jesus  into  a  religion.  No  disciple  could  behold  the 
Conqueror  of  death  and  reflect  upon  the  sight  without 
feeling  that  he  had  something  to  tell  the  world.  Yet 
that  evidential  value  came  only  with  reflection.  The 
first  preciousness  of  the  manifestation  was  altogether 
personal — the  joy  of  recovered  friendship,  of  the  same 
eyes  and  voice  charged  with  reassurance. 

Especially  would  this  be  true  of  the  first  occasion. 
We  are  very  sure  that  Mary  dreamed  not  of  Christian 
evidences  when  Jesus  spoke  her  name.  A  singular 
importance  attached  to  this  appearance  in  that  it  broke 
the  spell  of  despair.  They  used  to  tell  us  at  school 
how  in  some  places  within  the  Arctic  Circle,  as  the 
long  night  of  winter  draws  to  its  close,  the  people  will 
climb  the  hills  to  watch  for  the  sun,  every  one  anxious 
g  97 


The  Reward  of  Love 

to  be  the  first  to  see  his  golden  rim  and  raise  the 
shout,  '  The  sun  !  the  sun  ! '  The  first  view  is  every- 
thing for  the  moment,  and  subsequent  observations  do 
but  confirm  it.  Even  so  the  risen  Saviour  had  a 
supreme  favour  in  His  gift  on  that  first  day  of  the 
week,  and  we  are  acutely  interested  to  know  who 
gained  it,  and  why.  An  apostle  would,  we  think,  have 
been  a  fitting  recipient,  because  apostles  were  chosen 
and  trained  heralds  of  the  faith ;  and  by  preference 
the  boon  should  have  come  to  a  writing  apostle,  who 
could  record  the  wonder  for  future  ages  with  exactness 
beyond  cavil.  But  Jesus  passed  by  them  all — Matthew, 
Peter  and  even  John  His  bosom  friend — and  granted 
the  favour  to  a  poor  woman  once  laden  with  sins. 
This  is  very  significant,  for  nothing  happens  by  chance 
in  the  kingdom  of  grace.  It  means  that  He  came  first 
to  the  one  who  loved  Him  utterly,  bringing  the 
sweetest  comfort  to  the  sorest  sorrow,  the  swiftest 
succour  to  the  direst  need.  It  means  that  'the 
greatest  of  these  is  love.' 

When  we  trace  the  story,  there  proves  to  have  been 
a  close  and  gradual  sifting  of  the  disciples  in  the  net- 
work of  circumstances, as  if  it  were  designed  to  measure 
and  test  their  love.  It  is  one  of  the  beauties  in  earthly 
life  that  its  casual  happenings  and  seeming  accidents 
are  a  fine  sieve  for  real  worth.  The  men  have  been 
the  first  to  go,  most  of  them  very  early,  though  Petei 

98 


The  Reward  of  Love 

has  stayed  longer  than  was  safe  for  his  consistency,  and 
John,  protected,  perhaps,  by  his  social  connexions,  has 
waited  nearly  to  the  end.  The  women  are  protected  by 
their  sex,  yet  surely  something  stronger  than  woman's 
weakness  explains  their  watchful  lingering.  The  holy 
Mother  has  gone  from  the  Cross  only  because  she  can 
bear  no  more.  A  few  other  women  remain  in  the  story, 
numbed  and  self-forgetful  with  sorrow.  Some  slight 
services  may  yet  be  rendered  to  the  dead  Master's 
memory — the  embalming  is  not  quite  so  abundant  as 
affection  would  have  it — so  they  will  sleep  outside  the 
gates  and  be  early  at  the  sepulchre,  and  perhaps 
some  one  will  roll  away  the  stone  for  them.  Already 
the  love  of  Jesus  has  begun  to  obliterate  the  fear  of 
the  tomb  in  faithful  hearts.  This  is  the  darkest  hour, 
yet  over  hillside  and  dale  the  sunshine  is  coming. 

When  it  does  come  one  woman  stands  forth  alone  to 
meet  it.  The  life-story  of  Mary  Magdalene  is  but  dimly 
guessed  by  us.  She  was  the  woman  out  of  whom 
Jesus  cast  seven  devils,  and  tradition  doubtfully 
identifies  her  with  the  sinner  in  Simon's  house  who 
washed  the  Lord's  feet  with  tears.  The  best  link,  if 
link  there  be,  is  in  the  words,  '  she  loved  much.'  That 
saying  fits  this  Mary.  She  loved  much,  and  her  love 
kept  her  at  the  grave,  and  at  the  grave  she  met  Jesus 
That  is  Mary's  gospel-message  to  us.  Before  all  else 
Jesus  treasures  simple,  direct,  personal  affection.  He 
G2  99 


The  Reward  of  Love 

comes  to  all,  not  despising  those  whose  strength  lies 
elsewhere  and  whose  love  has  some  alloy  of  earthly 
interest.  He  honoured  faith,  commended  Nathanael's 
sincerity,  valued  obedience  and  practical  ability,  for 
these  things  are  often  the  garb  of  love.  But  they  are 
secondary.  One  quality  outshines  them  all,  is  the 
true  measure  of  our  kinship  to  Him  and  wins  the  seal 
of  His  tenderest  approval — even  clinging,  self- 
abandoning  love,  which  is  great  not  so  much  for  what 
it  does  as  for  what  it  is,  which  finds  the  glory  of  life 
realized  in  the  friendship  of  Jesus  and  all  problems 
solved  in  the  joy  of  communion  with  Him.  Of  this 
love  Mary  Magdalene  is  the  perfect  type. 

It  is  worth  while  to  measure  the  degree  of  her  love 
by  her  contrast  to  the  other  disciples.  They  are 
variously  occupied  at  this  period,  some  grouped  sadly 
in  the  room,  others  walking  singly  or  together  into 
the  country,  but  all  inclining  towards  the  question, 
What  is  the  next  thing  ? '  They  will  never  forget  the 
good  Master  and  those  wonderful  years,  but — '  to-day 
is  the  third  day  since  these  things  were  done.'  The 
cold  steel  of  the  fact  strikes  through  their  hearts,  and 
the  instinct  of  self-preservation  bids  them  seek  solace 
and  distraction.  What  compensations  has  life  to  offer  ? 
4 1  go  a-fishing.'  '  We  also  go  with  thee.'  It  is  natural 
enough  :  the  mind  is  too  wise  to  abandon  itself  to  grief 
unless  the  lost  love  has  been  everything.     The  differ- 

ioo 


The  Reward  of  Love 

ence  lay  here — to  Mary  that  love  was  everything. 
Let  others  seek  other  interests,  business,  marriage, 
pleasure  :  she  will  invent  what  little  offices  of  devotion 
she  can,  and  when  those  are  fulfilled  her  life  is  over5 
her  world  empty.  Hers  was  an  exclusive  affection, 
So  that  in  reality  a  great  miracle  happened  when  Jesus 
spoke  her  name.  Two  resurrections  took  place  that 
morning  ;  and  the  second  was  when  Christ  came  to  this 
woman,  whose  heart  and  hope  and  purpose  and  future 
lay  buried  in  His  grave,  and  restored  them  all  to  her, 
so  that  '  She  that  was  dead  sat  up.' 

There  is  something  deeply  emblematical  in  this 
scene.  In  the  dim  dawn  of  the  long  day  of  Christianity 
a  forlorn  woman  weeps  beside  an  empty  grave.  Her 
tears  will  soon  be  dried,  and  never  again  will  tears  flow 
for  the  same  cause — for  a  lost  Leader  and  a  dead 
Saviour;  but  while  that  long  day  lasts  there  must 
always  be  the  capacity  for  those  tears  in  His  disciples' 
hearts.  They  are  the  assent  to  His  own  saying, 
1  Without  Me  ye  can  do  nothing ' :  they  are  the  con- 
fession that  an  endurable  life  is  impossible  without 
Jesus. 

That  truth  always  needs  demonstrating  afresh,  and 
not  least  in  this  age,  which  is  so  lacking  in  the  repose 
of  great  convictions,  striving  to  the  limit  of  its  strength 
and  often  at  its  wits'  end.     Never  did  the  Christian 

IOI 


The  Reward  of  Love 

Church  offer  her  Lord  a  more  amazing  variety  of  activi- 
ties or  toil  more  earnestly  to  reform  her  intractable 
neighbour  the  World.  Future  historians  may  call  this 
the  age  of  committees,  for  religion  is  a  mighty  business. 
Nor  has  it  by  any  means  been  all  in  vain,  for  the 
general  average  of  honour  and  kindness  stands  higher 
than  ever  before.  Yet  the  hope  for  coming  days  never 
lies  in  the  average,  but  in  the  saints.  The  giant  enter- 
prises need  underpinning  with  the  personal  love  ol 
Jesus.  The  question  is  not  without  force — does 
such  a  hymn  as  *  Jesu,  the  very  thought  of  Thee  '  ring 
quite  true  to  our  feelings  ?  Are  we  not  wearied  with 
much  service  rather  than  rested  by  the  tumult  of  glad 
emotion  ? 

Mary's  testimony  may  even  be  scorned.  'The 
woman  was  neurotic  and  overwrought.  Her  very  love 
for  Jesus  was  not  quite  spiritual.'  It  may  be  granted — 
the  half- rebuke, 'Touch  me  not,'  implies  as  much; 
yet  the  spiritual  love  for  the  Christ  should  be  not  less 
but  more  intense  and  vivid  than  the  earthly  affections 
which  are  its  faint  symbols.  But  the  man  of  action 
again  objects.  '  In  any  case  it  was  a  woman's  love, 
not  possible  to  busy  men,  and  the  example  is  over- 
strained.' That  touches  a  true  distinction.  Women 
are  wont  to  subordinate  themselves,  and  self-forgetful- 
ness  comes  more  easily  to  them.  Men  assert  them- 
selves and  show  their  love  by  self-expression  and  active 

102 


The  Reward  of  Love 

achievement.  Yet  the  distinction  affects  only  the  form : 
the  quality  can  be  tried  by  a  test  common  to  all.  Ex- 
clusiveness  is  the  touchstone,  and  in  respect  of  that 
there  is  neither  male  nor  female.  Mary's  state  of  heart 
was  paralleled  by  the  manliest  of  heroic  figures,  even 
by  him  who  said,  ■  I  count  all  things  loss  for  the  excel- 
lency of  the  knowledge  of  Christ  Jesus  my  Lord.'  If 
the  expression  was  different  in  his  life  it  was  because 
the  circumstances  differed,  not  the  love.  Mary  wept  by 
the  rifled  grave  of  a  dead  Saviour,  as  she  thought.  Had 
St.  Paul  thought  that  Christ  was  dead  he  could  have 
found  nothing  better  to  do.  But  he  knew  well  that 
Christ  was  alive,  and  therefore  we  behold  him  daring 
the  salt  sea  and  the  perils  of  mountain  roads  and  the 
wrath  of  great  cities,  eager  only  to  be  near  Jesus  in 
the  very  heart  and  crisis  of  His  triumph.  About  the 
person  of  the  Redeemer  floats  an  aura  of  gladness  and 
an  entangling  charm,  first  perceived  perhaps  in  the 
garden  of  loss,  or  in  the  Arabia  of  the  soul's  extremity, 
or  in  some  other  place  where  hurrying  time  stands  still 
a  moment,  and  when  it  has  once  been  perceived — lo  ! 
His  yoke  is  easy  and  His  burden  light. 

Amid  the  roar  of  London  to-day  there  is  a  new  St. 
Paul's  Cross,  and  elsewhere,  in  a  city  church  which  is 
almost  hidden  by  crowded  buildings,  shines  a  window 
of  St.  Mary  Magdalen.  They  both  tell  the  same 
truth — that  the  thronging  life  of  the  world  can  only  be 

103 


The  Reward  of  Love 

ordered  and  purified  by  a  divine  passion.  Enthusiasm 
for  a  cause  is  excellent ;  but  it  so  easily  stops  strangely 
short  of  great  effects,  or  loses  itself  in  unprofitable 
details,  or  takes  to  prickly  partisanship.  Only  the 
heart  in  love  with  Jesus  keeps  ever  to  the  point,  feels 
with  a  gracious  catholicity  for  the  good  that  really 
matters,  and  tires  not.  *  For  love  carries  a  burden 
which  is  no  burden,  and  makes  everything  that  is 
bitter,  sweet  and  pleasant  to  the  taste.' 

It  is  for  this  efficacious  power  of  personal,  clinging, 
self-forgetful,  absorbing  and  exclusive  love  that  the 
heart  should  often  be  tested.  If  Christianity  were 
exploded  and  the  sweet  story  of  old  torn  to  shreds, 
would  life  be  empty  ?  If  that  be  a  far-fetched  sup- 
position (and  it  is,  thank  God  !),  how  do  I  bear  myself 
to  the  risen  Saviour  now  ?  Am  I  seeking  tawdry  and 
vagrant  compensations  by  the  wayside,  not  trusting 
Him  to  satisfy  my  heart's  desire  ?  The  clue  to  Mary's 
self-abandonment  is  very  simple — '  out  of  whom  He 
cast  seven  devils.'  It  was  not  that  she  had  just 
seven,  neither  more  nor  less ;  but  the  perfect  number 
means  that  He  cast  out  all  the  devils  she  had,  down 
to  the  last  and  comeliest  and  most  amiable  devil  of 
all.  And  whosoever  allows  Jesus  to  deal  thus  with 
him  shall  assuredly  know  perfect  love  and  the  joyous 
service  of  an  undivided  heart. 


104 


IX 

ST.  PAUL'S   DYNAMIC 


IX 

St.  Paul's  Dynamic 

/  have  been  crucified  with  Christ  .  .  .  and  that  life  which  I  now  live 
in  the  flesh  I  live  in  faith,  the  faith  which  is  in  the  Son  of  God,  who 
loved  me,  and  gave  Himself  up  for  me. — Gal.  ii.  20.    (R.V.) 

WE  shall  never  attain  to  a  great  love  for  Jesus  un- 
less we  habitually  realize  that  the  true  cause  of 
all  blessing  is  His  love  to  us  and  not  ours  to  Him.  A 
flower  may  very  well  become  the  cause  of  other  flowers 
which  shall  bloom  in  successive  seasons,  but  it  is 
never  its  own  cause  :  some  hand  planted  it  or  the  wind 
sowed  it.  And  it  is  thus  with  love  and  prayer  and 
obedience,  the  things  which  make  the  perfect  flower  of 
a  good  life.  Their  example  is  wonderfully  effective 
in  scattering  seed  of  good  desire  into  other  hearts,  but 
these  graces  themselves  are  not  brought  about  by  an 
effort  of  will  :  they  are  evoked  by  our  understanding 
of  the  great  things  the  Lord  hath  done  for  us.  They 
are  born  of  inward  gladness,  and  there  is  no  other 
source  of  gladness  than  that  of  the  old  words,  'Thou, 
Lord,  hast  made  me  glad  through  Thy  work.'  God 
wills  that  our  best  activities  should  be  free  offerings 

107 


St.  Paul's  Dynamic 

of  the  new  and  thankful  heart,  and  it  is  through  forget- 
ting this  and  trying  to  love  and  pray  by  sheer  force  of 
resolve  and  from  a  bare  sense  of  duty  that  many  be- 
lievers find  Christian  living  a  new  burden  instead  of  a 
new  song.  Our  main  endeavour  should  be  to  lay 
ourselves  open  to  the  irresistible  dynamic  of  a  heavenly 
motive. 

In  this  connexion  it  is  good  to  study  the  secret  of 
St.  Paul.  His  was  indeed  the  winged  and  buoyant 
spirit,  the  picturesque,  rapid,  and  eager  life.  Yet  that 
great  character  did  not  result  from  an  entirely  happy 
mingling  of  elements,  but  was  a  sustained  achieve- 
ment in  self-conquest.  We  can  discern  plainly  some 
of  the  inward  dangers  which  threatened  St.  Paul. 
The  seventh  chapter  of  Romans,  for  example,  shows 
him  on  the  slippery  verge  of  depression  which  might 
easily  have  become  chronic,  morbid,  and  paralysing. 
He  tells  us  much  about  his  physical  trouble,  the  thorn 
in  the  flesh  ;  and  elsewhere  confesses  to  appetites 
which  called  for  a  constant  buffeting  of  the  body.  His 
fiery  temper,  also,  flames  up  more  than  once  in  the 
story  which  has  come  down  to  us.  These  were  great 
perils  one  and  all.  Yet  he  won  safely  through,  past 
the  abyss  and  the  thicket  and  the  quagmire  and  the 
volcano,  and  we  know  him  as  a  complete  moral  suc- 
cess, foremost  among  those  clean  and  tender  hearts 
who  have  made  virtue  lovable.     His  own  descriptive 

108 


St  Paul's  Dynamic 

phrase  for  this  deliverance  and  transformation  is — ( 1 
have  been  crucified  with  Christ. 

That  is  a  true  account  of  the  mystery  of  character. 
Not  even  St.  Paul  could  trust  his  own  instincts  and 
impulses  to  work  out  unchecked  a  happy  destiny. 
Man's  high  welfare  depends  upon  victory  in  an  inward 
conflict.  In  every  one  there  is  something  perfectly 
natural  which  is  at  the  same  time  utterly  ruinous,  and 
the  successful  life  must  therefore  be  a  life  of  crucifixion. 
Some  insurgent  sinfulness  must  be  beaten  down,  slain, 
and  extirpated.  Much  modern  speculation  seeks  a 
more  genial  religion — a  Christianity  without  the  Cross, 
the  gentle  culture  of  wise  counsels  and  fair  ideals,  a 
Christ  who  is  chiefly  a  gracious  Teacher  of  souls  ready 
to  learn.  Such  a  Christ  and  such  a  creed  might 
suffice  did  not  every  day's  experience  tell  us  that  we 
must  die  to  live,  that  there  really  is  a  body  of  sin  to 
be  destroyed,  and  that  the  man  who  desires  simply  to 
be  good  must  himself  hang  upon  a  cross.  St.  Paul's 
analysis  of  selfishness  has  never  been  superseded. 
The  habit  of  loving — natural  as  it  ought  to  be  and  in 
part  is — can  only  be  perfected  through  an  utter  trans- 
formation. The  beautiful  result — the  finished  picture 
of  unworldliness — he  gives  us  in  many  scattered  verses. 
'  I  know  how  to  be  abased,  and  I  know  also  how  to 
abound ' — he  had  no  great  care  for  his  pocket ; 
'  Most   gladly    therefore    will   I    rather  glory  in   my 

109 


St.  Paul's  Dynamic 

weaknesses,  that  the  strength  of  Christ  may  rest 
upon  me ' — he  had  no  burdensome  care  for  his  health ; 
1  Christ  shall  be  magnified  in  my  body,  whether  by 
life  or  by  death ' — he  had  no  overweening  love  of 
life,  however  great  his  joy  in  it.  That  state  seems 
inaccessible  from  where  we  stand,  yet  we  feel  its 
allurement.  It  implies  a  boundless  liberty  and  fear- 
lessness and  enthusiasm :  it  is  the  climax  of  uncon- 
scious heroism.  And  the  apostle  puts  it  all  in  this 
way — *  I  have  been  crucified  with  Christ.' 

Certainly  his  figure  of  speech  is  terrifying,  and  we 
cannot  look  gladly  at  the  details  of  crucifixion. 
Monkish  preachers  have  tried  to  do  so,  and  fall  in  love 
with  pain  ;  but  we  are  children  of  sunshine,  and  we 
long  for  joy.  Much  less  can  we  plan  and  carry  out 
the  details.  But  is  it  not  the  very  point  of  the  figure 
of  speech  that  this  responsibility  does  not  rest  directly 
upon  us  ?  The  crucified  man  lies  prostrate  and  help- 
less, with  arms  extended  so  that  either  hand  is  far  out 
of  reach  of  the  other.  It  is  the  utterly  passive  attitude. 
No  man  can  possibly  nail  himself  to  the  cross  :  he  can 
only  yield  to  the  strong  affections  and  embrace  the 
great  causes  which  will  lead  him  and  lay  him  there. 
Surely  this  means  that  the  long,  bitter-sweet  discipline 
of  life  and  those  transforming  penances  and  chastise- 
ments which  make  the  birth-certificate  of  God's  chil- 
dren are  not  artificial  or  self-imposed.     We  do  badly 

no 


St  Paul's  Dynamic 

with  our  blundering  fingers  in  the  work  of  reforming 
ourselves,  and  while  we  gather  up  the  tares  too  often 
root  up  the  wheat  with  them.  It  is  easy  to  cast  away 
improvidence  and  liberality  at  the  same  time,  to  check 
an  indulgence  and  in  so  doing  narrow  our  human 
kindness,  to  practise  scrupulousness  and  grow  pain- 
fully self-conscious.  Then  the  old  Adam  in  us  laughs, 
and  he  laughs  still  more  when  we  break  down  in  our 
endeavour  for  fear  of  hurting  ourselves  too  much.  I 
heard  an  old  dentist  tell  how  he  once  extracted  a 
molar  of  his  own  before  a  looking-glass.  It  was  a 
gruesome  account  of  a  not  very  successful  operation. 
When  it  comes  to  the  extraction  of  inordinate  self- 
love  and  the  turning  of  the  heart  from  sin  to  God,  a 
Hand  wiser  and  firmer  than  our  own  must  do  it.  Our 
part  is  to  take  the  discipline  joyfully,  with  high-hearted 
submission,  like  many  a  martyr  who '  bowed  his  comely 
head  down  as  upon  a  bed.'  Let  us  not  talk  about 
crucifixion,  but  rather  grasp  the  great  motive  which 
makes  the  cross  inevitable  and  acceptable — the  motive 
upon  which  the  emphasis  of  our  text  finally  rests. 

Thus  far  all  that  has  been  said  is  by  way  of  de- 
scription, not  of  explanation.  It  is  no  explanation  to 
say  '  I  have  been  crucified  with  Christ/  for  that  mar- 
vellous experience  itself  needs  explaining.  We  find 
the  true  dynamic  in  the  last  phrase, '  who  loved  me,  and 
gave  Himself  for  me.'     How  came  that  to  be  written  ? 

in 


St  Paul's  Dynamic 

There  is  no  doubt  that  a  great  deal  of  biography 
lies  behind  this  verse  which  would  be  well  worth  un- 
folding. Did  St.  Paul  see  the  crucifixion  of  Jesus  ? 
Carlyle  pictured  the  young  Oliver  Cromwell  standing 
as  a  boy  by  the  scaffold  where  Raleigh  died,  and 
learning  there  his  first  lesson  in  the  hatred  of  tyranny  ; 
and  we  could  wish  to  think  of  Gamaliel's  youth- 
ful scholar  following  Jesus  along  the  Way  of 
Sorrow  and  witnessing  the  scenes  on  Calvary,  so  learn- 
ing all  unconsciously  his  first  great  lesson  in  divine 
love.  There  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  think 
this.  M.  Auguste  Sabatier  has  explained  away  the 
one  New  Testament  passage  which  upon  a  narrow  in- 
terpretation might  forbid  us,  and  as  for  the  argument 
from  St.  Paul's  silence,  perhaps  this  very  verse  breaks 
that  silence.  And  if  we  assume  that  he  was  there, 
can  we  select  from  the  incidents  of  that  day  one  which 
would  give  a  clue  to  his  later  thoughts  about  dying 
with  Jesus  ?     I  think  we  can. 

On  either  side  of  Jesus  a  malefactor  was  crucified. 
Of  all  men  in  the  world  those  two  alone  could  say 
with  literal  truth,  *  I  have  been  crucified  with  Christ' 
One  of  them  does  not  count,  because  he  attained  to 
no  more  than  the  bare  outward  fact,  but  the  othe  i 
went  further  and  gained  a  transfigured  ending  to  his 
gloomy  life.  He  began  by  railing  at  Jesus.  Doubt- 
less he  was   a   man  of  rough  nature,  hardened   by 

112 


St  Paul's  Dynamic 

circumstance  :  just  then,  moreover,  the  fear  of  death 
troubled  him,  and  perhaps  also  'a  little  grain  of 
conscience  made  him  sour.'  He  cursed  the  Saviour 
because  Jesus  seemed  superior  in  His  gentleness  and 
patience.  Soon,  however,  the  agony  began  to  subdue 
the  man.  The  weight  of  his  body  tearing  his  hands 
upon  the  nails,  the  intolerable  cramp  in  every  limb, 
the  burning  thirst — these  tamed  him.  As  the  hours 
passed  he  became  no  more  than  an  anguished  shred 
of  human  flesh,  willing  to  do  anything  for  relief.  And 
all  through  those  long  moments  he  saw  Jesus  suffer- 
ing the  same  pain,  yet  speaking  tenderly,  thoughtfully, 
spiritually,  as  One  who  still  retained  command  of  His 
purpose.  It  was  the  man's  vision  of  God,  and  it  won 
him.  He  gasped  his  prayer,  and  Christ,  who  had 
already  begun  to  rule  the  world  from  that  strange 
throne,  gave  him  the  eternal  things  with  kingly 
bounty. 

So  far  as  it  went  that  was  just  like  St.  Paul.  In  my 
childhood  I  often  listened  to  the  well-known  hymn 
which  says, 

The  dying  thief  rejoiced  to  see 
That  fountain  in  his  day, 

and  I  used  to  think  that  St.  Paul  wrote  it.  Probably 
the  idea  came  from  the  apostle's  description  of  him- 
self as  '  of  sinners  chief.'  Certainly  there  is  no  need 
to  be  ashamed  of  that  childish  error  of  detail,  for  in 

h  113 


St,  Paul's  Dynamic 

truth  St.  Paul  and  William  Cowper  collaborated  over 
that  hymn,  and  my  only  mistake  lay  in  forgetting 
Cowper's  share  of  the  work.  To-day  to  older  eyes 
it  seems  quite  within  the  manifold  possibilities  of  the 
case  that  in  writing  this  verse  St.  Paul  consciously 
accepted  that  dying  thief  as  a  symbol  of  himself. 
For  he  too  began  by  railing  at  Jesus  and  persecuting 
His  disciples.  And  all  the  time  he  himself  was  being 
subdued  by  an  equal  but  more  subtle  pain,  even  the 
sense  of  sin  and  the  shame  of  failure  and  the  horror  of 
a  life  without  a  meaning,  until  he  too  became  just  a 
conscience-lashed  shred  of  humanity  ready  for  any 
deliverer.  Then  the  Lord  appeared  to  him  with  His 
quiet  command  of  the  situation.  The  Victim  was  the 
Master.  Jesus  lived,  and  therefore  He  need  never 
have  died.  At  any  moment  He  might  have  left  the 
cross  and  the  anguish  behind.  Clearly  enough,  that 
pitiful  suffering  had  all  been  voluntary.  And  for 
what  purpose,  then  ?  The  answer  came  in  the  tender- 
ness of  Christ's  words  and  in  His  manifest  concern  for 
Saul  of  Tarsus.  Under  the  touch  of  that  gentle 
reproach  the  new  realization  broke  upon  the  man,  and 
the  sob  burst   from  him — '  He  loved  me,  and  gave 

Himself  for  me.' 

•  ••••• 

Thus  the  text  has  told  us  how  in  one  of  old  time 
a  great  love  for  Jesus  was  brought  to  birth,  and  that 

114 


St.  Paul's  Dynamic 

love  grown  strong  burst  all  barriers  of  habit  and 
prejudice  and  convention,  leading  him  forth  into 
boundless  spaces  of  service  which  he  called  'the 
glorious  liberty  of  the  children  of  God.'  A  child  of 
God  drawing  life  daily  from  the  central  source  must 
be  free  and  forceful,  an  uncaged  spirit  and  a  great 
initiator.  Few  of  us  will  deny  that  this  is  our  sore 
need.  We  have  other  motives,  but  passion  is  the 
motive.  It  is  very  wise  to  be  a  Christian,  but  wisdom 
alone  never  made  a  Christian.  It  is  highly  profitable 
to  be  a  Christian,  but  self-regard  will  not  bring  us  to  it. 
It  is  perilous  not  to  be  a  Christian,  but  fear  will  not  do 
the  work.  How  is  love  made,  and  what  will  set  men's 
hearts  on  fire  ? 

St.  Paul  found  the  secret  of  a  holy  passion  in  the 
sight  of  Christ's  voluntary  suffering  for  himself.  And 
truly,  vicarious  suffering  is  the  one  profoundly  moving 
spectacle  which  never  stales.  The  masters  of  imagina- 
tion have  wrought  their  most  powerful  results  upon 
this  theme.  Shakespeare's  Romeo  and  Juliety  Haw- 
thorne's Scarlet  Letter,  and  Dickens'  Tale  of  Two 
Cities  come  easily  to  mind.  If  any  spark  of  nobility 
glows  in  a  man's  nature,  the  knowledge  that  another 
is  willingly  bearing  pain  for  him  will  fan  it  into  flame. 
The  least  instance  of  such  sacrifice  is  strangely  power- 
ful, and  the  greatest  overwhelms.  Your  little  child 
tries  with  a  real  effort  to  stifle  its  sobs  in  obedience  to 
h  2  115 


St  Paul's  Dynamic 

your  word,  and  how  tenderness  warms  within  you  !  A 
friend  suffers  in  your  cause  out  in  the  world,  and  how 
life  is  lifted  to  a  higher  level !  And  all  the  vicarious 
suffering  which  threads  human  existence  through  and 
through  with  beauty  is  exemplified  and  transcended  by 
the  work  of  Jesus.  That  is  the  everlasting  appeal  of 
the  Cross. 

But  a  man  may  say,  *  That  appeal  has  been  before 
me  all  my  days,  yet,  alas,  it  leaves  me  tepid.'  It  is 
an  honest  confession  and  sometimes  true.  It  comes 
from  a  partial  understanding  of  the  appeal.  We  are 
too  apt  to  conclude  that  Christ  wants  simply  gratitude, 
and  an  idle  sentiment  of  gratitude  quickly  grows 
wearisome  :  man's  strong  motives  can  never  be  wholly 
retrospective.  Gratitude  is  indeed  the  first  step. 
Christ  loved  thee  and  gave  Himself  for  thee,  took  the 
responsibility  of  thy  debts  upon  Himself  and  put  away 
all  thy  well-grounded  fears.  There  is  no  need  now  to 
fear  condemnation,  or  thine  own  unworthiness,  or 
backsliding,  or  the  ultimate  victory  of  sin.  He  is  able 
to  keep  that  which  thou  hast  committed  unto  Him 
against  that  day.  Take  it  at  its  largest,  Faint-heart, 
and  rejoice.  Gratitude  is  the  first  step,  and  a  great 
step.  But  now  what  art  thou  going  to  do  with  thy 
time  ?  There  is  no  need  for  a  single  selfish  care  even 
about  spiritual  things  if  thou  believest,  so  thou  wilt 
now  want  a  better  employment.     What  shall  it  be  ? 

116 


St  Paul's  Dynamic 

Thou  canst  not  for  ever  cherish  an  idle  sentiment  of 
gratitude. 

And  surely  the  answer  comes  in  the  contagiousness 
of  love.  The  appeal  of  a  wonderful  sacrifice  has 
certainly  failed  unless  it  evokes  an  answering  sym- 
pathy within  us,  convincing  us  that  sacrifice  is  the  very 
refinement  of  joy,  and  that  if  we  would  live  indeed  we 
must  lay  down  our  lives  for  the  brethren.  This  com- 
pletes the  message  of  the  Cross.  St.  Paul  expressed 
it  in  his  vehement  desire  to  know  the  fellowship  of 
the  Lord's  sufferings,  and  it  may  be  hoped  that  there 
never  was  a  time  when  his  ambition  was  more  widely 
shared  by  *  men  of  goodwill '  than  in  these  days 
Never  did  the  life  of  selfish  ease  seem  so  tawdry,  and 
never  was  there  stronger  yearning  for  what  that  young 
master  of  holy  speech  whom  God  lately  took  from  us 
has  called 

Such  pulse  and  flame  and  sacrifice  and  song 
As  none  may  know  who  live  to  save  their  life. 

Here  again,  in  the  quest  for  this  higher  life  which 
satisfies  the  heart  with  costly  enterprise,  there  has  been 
opened  for  us  a  new  and  living  way  into  the  Holiest 
by  the  blood  of  Jesus. 

Look  long  and  steadfastly  at  the  Cross,  and  thou 
shalt  not  fail  to  find  that  way  for  thine  own  feet  to 
tread. 

117 


X 

THE  SPENDING  OF  LIFK 


The  Spending  of  Life 

To  give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many. — Matt.  xx.  28. 

THIS  is  Christ's  lesson  for  kings,  and  therefore  for 
all  of  us.  Every  man  has  a  great  deal  in  common 
with  his  king :  they  differ  in  a  few  matters  and  are 
alike  in  everything  else.  Especially  are  monarch  and 
merchant,  prince  and  pedlar  alike  in  that  each  is 
trying  to  engrave  in  everlasting  lines  the  portrait  of 
a  man,  and  this  task  is  no  easier  for  one  than  for  the 
other.  Whether  the  frame  shall  be  gilded  or  plain  is 
very  unimportant.  Indeed  they  come  into  closest 
sympathy,  because  in  many  parts  of  his  life  the 
king  is  a  veritable  drudge,  and  the  labouring  man  in 
some  parts  of  his  life  is  an  absolute  monarch.  So  we 
may  take  the  Master's  lesson  as  belonging  to  us  all, 
and  calculated  to  impart  and  maintain  a  touch  of 
royalty  in  everybody. 

Dignity  of  character  lies  in  serviceableness.  We 
gain  a  fresh  and  clear  view  of  this  truth  in  the  light 
of  an  illustration  suggested — accidentally,  perhaps — 
by  the  language  which  Jesus  used.     '  The  Son  of  Man 


121 


The  Spending  of  Life 

came  not  to  be  ministered  unto,  but  to  minister,  and 
to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many.'  His  life  was  a 
ransom-price,  and  a  ransom-price  is  usually  paid  in 
money.  Thus  a  comparison  is  momentarily  instituted 
between  life  and  money,  and  the  comparison  takes  us 
a  long  way  in  useful  thinking.  Money  is  the  best 
earthly  servant  of  the  sound  mind  and  the  most 
terrible  master  of  the  mind  enslaved — a  sweet  and 
blessed  treasure  to  the  man  who  after  months  of  want 
at  last  handles  wages  again,  but  a  maddening  curse 
to  the  gamester  when  its  jingle  has  drowned  the 
music  of  his  life.  It  is  a  thing  most  emphatically 
'not  to  be  ministered  unto  but  to  minister/  and 
what  we  know  about  it  may  guide  us  directly  into  the 
Christly  conception  of  life. 

A  simple  statement  of  economics  asserts  that 
money  is  not  wealth.  In  itself  it  possesses  no  parti- 
cular value,  but  by  agreement  among  men  a  definite 
purchasing  power  has  been  assigned  to  it.  If 
Robinson  Crusoe  has  any  readers  to-day  they  can 
supply  the  proof.  Crusoe  went  back  to  the  wreck 
shortly  after  the  storm  to  pick  up  such  things  as  might 
be  useful  to  him  in  his  solitary  existence.  In  the 
cabin  he  opened  a  drawer  and  found  there  thirty-six 
pounds  in  gold.  Hear  him  on  the  subject.  '  I  smiled 
to  myself  at  the  sight  of  this  money.  "  O  drug ! " 
said   I  aloud,  "what  art  thou  good  for?     Thou  art 

122 


The  Spending  of  Life 

not  worth  to  me,  no  not  the  taking  off  of  the  ground  : 
one  of  these  knives  is  worth  all  that  heap.  I  have  no 
manner  of  use  for  thee  ;  even  remain  where  thou  art 
and  go  to  the  bottom  as  a  creature  whose  life  is  not 
worth  saving."  '  In  the  desert  isle  with  no  exchange 
or  mart  the  natural  sterility  of  the  coins  became 
manifest,  and  that  '  hard  food  for  Midas '  seemed 
poor  enough  to  merit  contempt. 

Most  children  have  that  lesson  brought  home  to 
them  in  early  days.  A  friendly  visitor  will  leave 
a  shilling  or  a  half-crown  for  the  boy  of  the  family. 
The  young  capitalist's  hopes  rise  and  his  imagination 
kindles — until  he  shows  it  to  his  mother.  Then  the 
fiat  goes  forth — f  How  kind  of  your  uncle  !  Now  mind 
you  don't  spend  it!  So  the  power  and  promise  of  the 
coin  vanish  into  the  unprofitable  depths  of  the  money- 
box, and  the  child  wonders  what  is  the  use  of  money 
if  it  cannot  be  spent.  That  juvenile  logic  is  entirely 
sound.  The  '  pale  and  common  drudge  'twixt  man 
and  man '  only  realizes  its  value  as  it  passes  from 
hand  to  hand,  ever  purchasing  for  its  spenders  things 
to  eat  and  drink  and  enjoy. 

We  may  turn  and  scrutinize  life  with  exactly  the 
same  question  on  our  lips.  What  is  it  good  for 
except  to  be  spent — except  in  regard  of  its  purchasing 
power?  Animate  existence,  physical  fitness,  mental 
agility,  the  delicacy  of  unspoiled  senses,  the  mystery 

123 


The  Spending  of  Life 

of  days  and  hours — our  joy  is  not  in  these  things,  but 
in  what  we  may  use  them  for  and  gain  by  them. 
Somewhere  behind  this  earthly  and  perishable  stock- 
in-trade  sits  the  soul,  solicitous  only  to  spend  its 
capital  with  advantage  and  buy  satisfaction.  Life 
may  be  expended  for  pleasure — a  dangerous  invest- 
ment ! — or  it  may  be  paid  away  for  love  or  honour  or 
immortal  hope,  but  spent  it  must  be  if  it  is  to  yield 
value.  As  a  Lord  of  the  Admiralty  put  it  at  a  naval 
banquet,  '  Human  life  is  very  precious,  but  its  most 
precious  asset  is  that  it  can  be  parted  with  in  a  great 
cause.' 

Now  in  relation  to  money  there  often  comes  to 
some  minds  the  temptation  to  hug  and  hoard  and 
make  the  means  into  an  end.  We  recall  the  miser  of 
the  old  tales,  horribly  picturesque,  lean,  sallow,  and 
unkempt,  his  hands  like  talons  and  the  gleam  of  the 
gold  in  his  bilious  eyes.  His  wealth  lies  in  the  iron 
chest,  and  nightly  by  the  light  of  a  single  candle  he 
counts  it,  letting  the  guineas  drip  through  his  palsied 
fingers.  His  very  name  stands  for  damnation  and 
futility.  He  has  the  gold,  but  it  is  not  wealth,  for  by 
a  strange  obsession  he  can  never  spend  it  He  is  a 
rare  and  perhaps  mythical  sort  of  madman. 

But  there  are  misers  of  life  not  so  rare.  Truly  that 
volatile  essence  cannot  be  kept  in  a  strong  box.  If 
not  boldly  spent,  it  will  none  the  less  slip  away.    Yet 

124 


The  Spending  of  Life 

here  and  there  a  man  is  infatuated  over  mere  physical 
living  and  tremulous  with  anxiety  for  his  momentary 
safety.  He  shrinks  from  the  weather  and  shivers  at 
the  rain,  finds  suspicious  symptoms  every  day  and 
dreams  of  germs  at  night.  He  hugs  his  animal  life 
even  when  it  has  become  but  a  hollow  anxiety.  He 
will  probably  keep  it  a  long  time  with  his  stupendous 
precautions,  but  though  he  has  the  coin  he  has  lost 
its  value.  The  lust  of  existing  quenches  the  spirit 
of  adventure,  the  fear  of  death  stifles  the  impulse  to 
help,  the  fountain  of  brave  purpose  is  dried  up* 
Though  the  coward  live  as  long  as  Old  Parr  his  life 
has  no  meaning,  and  he  dies  daily.  Few  perhaps  are 
quite  so  foolish  as  this.  A  commoner  miserdom  is  to 
hug  and  hoard  the  sweet  things  of  life,  such  as  com- 
fort and  selfish  affection.  Therein  lies  the  charac- 
teristic sin  of  the  middle  and  later  years.  We  may 
gather  to  our  own  cosy  fire,  drawing  the  curtains  and 
shutting  out  the  winter  sleet — shutting  out  also  the 
alien  sorrow  of  Lazarus,  unwilling  to  lacerate  our 
feelings  by  even  contemplating  his  woe.  Then  the 
tragedy  of  the  withered  hand  comes  upon  us.  Soon 
we  cannot  help  if  we  would,  and  our  biography  is 
written  in  respectable  self-indulgence.  We  keep  our 
comfort  but  its  glitter  is  gone.  Never  more  will  the 
thrill  of  romance  shake  the  cold  heart,  for  romance 
costs  much,  and  true  love   is   always  a   breathless 

125 


The  Spending  of  Life 

adventure.  The  law  for  money,  life,  and  comfort  is 
the  same :  they  must  be  spent  lavishly,  put  to  the 
hazard  with  devoted  recklessness  if  we  would  profit 
by  them,  and  only  he  that  loseth  his  life  will  save  it. 

This  is  much  more  than  a  mere  bargain  in  hap- 
piness :  it  is  a  sacred  call  and  a  point  of  honour. 
Long  ago  Lord  Wolseley  wrote  in  his  Soldier's  Pocket- 
Book  a  sentence  which  deserves  to  live — '  The 
officers  must  try  to  get  killed.'  The  matter  could 
not  be  more  conclusively  put.  Not  in  the  battlefield 
alone,  but  everywhere  and  always,  except  among  the 
few  lost  souls  of  whom  men  do  not  speak,  has  that 
great  rule  won  simple  unthinking  obedience.  Every 
physician  goes  by  it  to  the  haunt  of  contagion.  John 
Richard  Green  wrote  his  beloved  history  when  the 
pains  of  death  gat  hold  upon  him  ;  Archbishop 
Temple's  father  made  provision  for  his  widow 
and  family  by  taking  a  government  appointment 
in  a  deadly  climate  and  leaving  them  a  pension  after 
two  years'  service.  Undistinguished  men  and  women 
are  spending  their  slender  capital  of  health  and  life 
with  but  a  plain  idea  of  doing  right  by  those  they 
love,  and  with  no  talk  of  sacrifice.  So  vast  and  lovely 
are  man's  possibilities  when  he  turns  his  face  to  Right 
— which  is  God  ! 

All  the  wealth  of  example  and  the  wisdom  of 
instinct  condenses  into  this — find  out  the  thing  that 

126 


The  Spending  of  Life 

you  can  do  best  and  get  killed  in  the  doing  of  it.  True, 
spending  is  not  the  whole  of  life,  but  it  is  '  the  last  of 
life  for  which  the  first  was  made.'  *  Get  all  you  can  : 
save  all  you  can ;  give  all  you  can' — that  familiar 
motto,  interpreted  as  lavishly  as  Wesley  interpreted 
it  in  his  own  affairs,  and  applied  to  all  our  talents, 
makes  great  living.  When  the  hour  strikes,  and  the 
need  of  our  country  or  our  neighbour,  of  our  Church 
or  our  God  is  greatest,  we  are  to  spend,  forgetting  to 
be  tired,  recking  not  of  overwork,  casting  health  and 
wit  and  joy  and  life  into  the  service.  Often  enough, 
indeed,  this  turns  out  to  mean  prolonged  and  enlarged 
earthly  life  ;  but  should  it  be  otherwise  and  '  death  be 
waiting  at  the  gate/  he  will  prove  a  gentle  and 
applauding  friend. 

We  end  where  we  began,  with  the  touch  of  royalty. 
The  glory  of  a  king  is  his  voluntary  service  to  his 
people.  Perhaps  this  faint  distinction  may  be  traced 
between  the  two  words  used  by  Jesus,  that  a 
1  minister '  was  a  slightly  more  exalted  worker  than  a 
'servant.*  In  modern  English,  at  any  rate,  that 
distinction  is  deeply  drawn,  for  the  king's  ministers 
are  the  most  dignified  of  rulers.  The  distinction 
comes  into  every  life.  Throughout  many  hours  we 
are  servants  under  the  yoke,  doing  work  for  wages. 
Even  there  the  touch  of  royalty  may  be  added,  for 
though  others  may  set  our  work,  it  is  not  in  the  bond 

127 


The  Spending  of  Life 

that  we  should  love  it.  But  again  there  are  our 
leisure  hours  where  no  one  dictates — whole  realms  of 
thought  and  speech  where  we  do  as  we  will.  Here 
indeed  our  state  is  kingly.  If  these  unclaimed  spaces 
are  hallowed  by  voluntary  service  it  is  ministration  in 
the  free  and  full  sense,  and  we  find  there  our  richest 
capital  and  our  finest  sacrifice. 

It  is  not  the  hardest  life — this  of  free  service.  The 
hard  life  is  that  passed  in  wresting  an  unwilling 
homage  and  tribute  from  the  world.  Life  is  restful 
when  a  man  has  learned  to  watch  the  years  pass  and 
old  age  come,  well  content  that  all  should  be  spent. 
We  do  not  grudge  the  payment  that  we  have  duly 
allowed  for  in  our  estimates.  And  such  lives  end 
well.  Andrew  Carnegie  holds  it  a  disgrace  to  die 
rich,  and  Wesley  was  pleased  to  write  in  an  epitaph 
happily  not  needed  at  the  time, '  not  leaving,  when 
his  debts  are  paid,  ten  pounds  behind  him.'  Men  die 
very  easily,  and  we  may  be  sure  that  they  rise  very 
lightly,  when  there  remains  with  them  not  an  ounce  of 
strength  reserved  and  not  a  good  word  unspoken,  but 
all  their  earthly  capital  is  transferred  into  the  currency 
of  that  Country  to  which  they  are  going  and  ma^ 
treasure  in  Heaven. 


198 


XI 

COMPENSATION  FOR  CIRCUMSTANCES 


XI 

Compensation  for  Circumstances 

For  he  that  was  called  in  the  Lord,  being  a  bondservant,  is  the  Lord's 
freedman :  likewise  he  that  was  called,  being  free,  is  Christ's  bondservant. 
— i  Cor.  vii.  22. 

THIS  is  a  paradoxical  saying  which  asserts  that 
a  man  can  be  a  slave  yet  not  a  slave,  free  and  yet 
not  free  in  the  same  moment.  It  does  not  mean,  how- 
ever, that  St.  Paul  is  losing  his  grip  of  reality,  but  that 
he  is  dwelling  on  the  way  in  which  appearances  can 
contradict  reality.  Circumstances  seldom  tell  the 
whole  truth  about  people.  '  It  is  not  the  cowl  that 
makes  the  monk,'  nor  the  black  coat  that  betokens 
the  gentleman,  nor  the  chain  that  proves  the  slave. 
Think  your  way  back  to  that  scene  in  the  almost  for- 
gotten story  where  Uncle  Tom  is  dying,  flogged  to 
death  by  a  brutal  master.  Who  was  the  slave  there  ? 
Was  it  the  old  negro  who  could  master  his  spirit  and 
forgive  the  man  who  had  misused  him,  or  the  white 
tyrant  in  bondage  to  his  own  rage  ?  The  text  suggests 
a  contrast  something  like  that.  It  tells  us  that 
circumstances  have  a  certain  importance,  but  are  very 
1  2  131 


Compensation  for  Circumstances 

far  from  all-important.  They  do  not  decide  that  a 
man  shall  be  good  or  that  he  shall  be  happy  :  those 
things  depend  at  last  upon  the  man  inside  the  circum- 
stances. Our  subject  is  the  true  and  rich  compensa- 
tion which  all  may  find  in  the  inward  life  for  the 
shortcomings  and  mistreatment  of  circumstances. 
The  doctrine  will  still  be  needed  even  when  the 
humanitarianism  which  in  our  day  exercises  itself 
chiefly  about  life's  outward  ills  has  done  its  noble 
best,  for  man's  standard  of  blessing  is  ever  within. 

The  passage  is  an  echo  from  an  old  social  state, 
happily  passed  away.  Slavery,  plainly  acknowledged 
as  such,  was  everywhere,  and  Christianity  had  not  yet 
declared  against  it.  St.  Paul  apparently  had  no 
conscience  against  it.  He  could  send  Onesimus  back 
to  his  master  with  a  lovely  letter  full  of  sympathy  for 
the  slave's  lot,  yet  never  hinting  that  slavery  was 
wrong.  The  vast  implications  of  Christ's  saving  work 
had  not  then  been  so  far  unfolded.  It  may  be  said 
also,  that  however  much  horror  St.  Paul  had  felt  at  the 
system,  he  could  not  have  shaken  it,  and  an  attempt 
to  do  so  would  have  caused  delay  and  perhaps  de- 
struction to  that  preaching  of  the  Great  Emancipation 
which  must  lead  to  all  lesser  kind  of  freedom.  So 
the  apostle  began  at  the  workable  end  of  things.  He 
would  teach  the  slave  how  to  endure. 

His  teaching  contains  two  steps.  First,  let  every 
132 


Compensation  for  Circumstances 

man  accept  his  lot.  After  all,  the  great  circumstances 
of  life  are  there  by  God's  permission.  They  may  be 
His  will:  perhaps  there  is  a  purpose  in  them.  At  any 
rate  this  may  be  said,  that  where  God's  call  has  found 
a  man,  God's  grace  can  keep  him.  That  is  the  great 
conservative  principle  in  the  life  of  faith — open  to 
modification,  of  course,  and  not  to  be  too  rigidly 
applied,  but  more  wise  and  wholesome  than  hasty  folk 
know.  '  Do  not  be  in  a  hurry  to  change  your  state,' 
says  St.  Paul,  and  he  applies  the  doctrine  to  several 
matters.  Marriage  is  one,  and  upon  that  a  preacher 
will  be  slow  to  advise.  Another  matter  is  creed,  and 
here  the  counsel  has  great  value.  One  of  the  letters 
in  Charles  Kingsley's  biography  was  written  to  a  lady 
who  felt  that  it  might  be  her  duty  to  join  the  Church 
of  Rome,  and  the  Canon's  argument  ran  closely  upon 
these  lines,  that  as  grace  had  come  to  her  first  through 
the  Church  of  England,  there  was  a  presumption  that 
God  had  further  gifts  to  give  her  through  the  same 
channel.  It  is  probable  that  all  the  scattered  sections 
of  Christ's  flock  would  be  drawn  more  swiftly  into 
unity  if  that  principle  were  generally  observed,  and  if 
minds  which  see  the  good  in  other  systems  remained 
at  home  in  their  own  fold,  and  created  sympathy 
there  for  the  good  they  have  discovered  in  their 
neighbours.  The  hardest  application  of  all  was  in  the 
case  of  the  slave,  yet  St.  Paul  plainly  said  that  even 

133 


Compensation  for  Circumstances 

if  the  bondman  saw  his  way  to  freedom,  he  must  not 
seize  it  hastily  as  though  it  were  the  one  thing  needful. 

The  apostle  then  takes  an  all-important  second 
step.  He  is  not  one  of  those  wearisome  comforters 
who  preach  the  word  resignation  until  our  gorge  rises 
at  it :  he  will  not  say,  *  Be  resigned,'  without  bringing 
that  ray  of  illumination  which  makes  resignation 
possible.  His  further  counsel  is — look  for  the  com- 
pensations. There  are  compensations  even  for  the 
slave.  He  is  branded  on  the  body,  but  his  spirit  may 
be  free.  A  chain  may  bind  his  limbs,  but  there  need 
be  no  chain  upon  his  heart.  The  word  of  God  is  not 
bound.  Knowing  Christ,  the  bondman  may  be 
always  doing  the  Lord's  work,  tasting  the  cup  of 
salvation,  rejoicing  in  love,  looking  for  the  inheritance 
incorruptible  and  undefiled.  And  beside  these  high 
privileges,  do  circumstances  matter  so  very  much  after 
all  ?  Nay,  does  it  not  come  true  that  there  is  neither 
bond  nor  free  in  Christ  Jesus  ?  There  is  a  glory  in  the 
Saviour  for  those  who  really  see  Him  which  dazzles 
their  weak  eyes  so  that  they  cannot  closely  observe 
time's  disadvantages,  and  a  sweetness  in  His  love 
which  overpowers  many  a  passing  bitterness.  The 
saint  will  often  be  too  thankful  to  complain. 

I  would  stretch  this  teaching  to  cover  our  circum- 
stances. Slavery  is  gone,  but  bondage  remains  in 
many  forms.  Few  are  they  who  know  it  not.  There 
is    the    bondage    of  comparative  poverty — perhaps 

134 


Compensation  for  Circumstances 

a  sorer  trial  than  absolute  poverty.  We  meet  no 
sterner  taskmaster  and  no  more  fretting  discipline 
than  financial  difficulty  on  a  small  scale.  The  work- 
man's wife  who  must  maintain  the  home  and  keep 
love  at  the  fireside  on  twenty  shillings  each  week,  and 
the  single-handed  tradesman  who  knows  that  a  two- 
months'  illness  would  put  him  in  bankruptcy — the 
tears  of  angels  fall  on  their  bonds.  There  is  the 
slavery  of  labour.  The  daily  task  waits  for  a  man. 
It  never  considers  his  feelings.  Ill  or  well  he  must 
return  to  it,  whether  the  bitter  winter  dawn  snaps  at 
him,  or  the  summer  morning  smiles  an  invitation. 
There  is  the  bondage  of  taxing  relationships  and 
unnatural  subjection  to  others.  And  there  is  the 
bondage  of  physical  weakness.  In  an  old  character 
sketch  of  a  great  statesman  who  is  still  to  the  fore, 
Mr.  Stead  said  about  him  something  to  this  effect. 
'With  all  his  vast  ability  he  reveals  a  delicacy  of 
constitution  which  will,  perhaps,  for  ever  prevent  him 
from  taking  a  place  among  the  historic  prime-ministers 
of  England.'  What  real  pain  lies  in  such  limitations  ! 
It  would  seem  that  many  men  have  paths  of  the 
heart's  desire  which  they  would  dearly  love  to  tread, 
yet  the  hand  of  circumstance  has  written  up  there 
4  No  road/  and  they  must  turn  aside  and  walk  in  less 
interesting  ways.  At  least  if  it  has  never  been  so 
with  you,  God  pity  you !  'Tis  a  small  soul  whose 
desire  never  outruns  its  possibilities. 

i35 


Compensation  for  Circumstances 

What  shall  we  say  to  these  things  ?  '  Be  resigned  '  ? 
Yea,  truly,  that  is  needful  ;  but  let  us  not  stop  there, 
A  larger  counsel  is  given  us.  Be  not  over-anxious 
about  outward  freedom.  There  is  a  sweetness  of  heart 
that  can  never  be  lost,  save  by  repining  thought.  The 
circumstances  do  not  matter — so  much.  Look  for  the 
compensations.  Dwell  on  the  affirmatives  of  life,  not 
on  its  negatives ;  on  its  permissions,  not  on  its 
prohibitions  ;  on  what  you  can  do,  not  on  what  you 
cannot  do.  '  The  heroic  for  earth  too  hard  '  is  not  lost 
though  it  be  postponed.  Take  this  homely  philosophy 
with  its  apostolic  sanction,  and  thank  God  that  at 
least  the  dream  visited  your  heart. 

And  because  men  are  earnest — partly  also  because 
they  are  only  half  wise — they  will  say  with  some 
bitterness,  'Ah,  it's  easy  talking.'  Is  it?  Was  it 
easy  for  St.  Paul  ?  True,  he  had  never  worn  a  chain 
when  he  wrote  these  words,  but  he  came  to  wear  it 
later,  and  the  chain  made  no  difference.  '  I  therefore, 
the  prisoner  of  the  Lord,  beseech  you  to  walk  worthily 
of  the  calling  wherewith  ye  were  called.'  Read  the 
first  chapter  of  Philippians  if  you  would  know  in  how 
many  ways  a  chained  man  may  glorify  God.  But  be 
sure  it  was  not  'easy  talking.'  When  the  apostle 
wrote  in  another  place,  '  I  reckon  that  the  sufferings 
of  this  present  time  are  not  worthy  to  be  compared 
with  the  glory  which  shall  be  revealed  to  us-ward,'  it 
was   not   because   he   knew   little  01    sufferings,  but 

136 


Compensation  for  Circumstances 

because  he  had  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  glory  and 
found  it  very  great. 

It  is  not  easy  for  honest  men  to  talk  as  though 
circumstances  mattered  little,  nor  for  good  men  to  feel 
that  they  do,  for  indeed  that  independence  of  spirit  is 
life's  hardest  lesson  and  the  learning  of  it  a  triumph 
of  grace.  Our  subject  lies  not  on  the  fringe  of  religion 
but  at  its  very  centre.  There  is  no  more  searching 
test  of  character  than  our  relation  to  circumstances. 
If  we  are  easily  cast  down  or  uplifted  by  them,  'the 
world  is  too  much  with  us '  :  we  are  of  those  who 
•  mind  earthly  things.'  But  only  the  man  who  sets  his 
affections  on  things  above  where  Christ  sitteth  can 
treat  outward  ills  as  they  deserve.  A  bit  of  by-play 
in  Wesley's  Journal  comes  to  mind.  The  great 
Methodist  was  one  day  riding  out  of  Bristol  by  a 
narrow  lane,  when  he  met  a  cart  which  barely  left 
room  for  his  horse  to  pass.  This  small  space  was 
taken  up  by  the  carter,  an  ill-conditioned  fellow  who 
would  not  make  way.  The  confusion  led  to  a  collision, 
in  which  Mr.  Wesley's  horse  fell  and  he  himself  was 
thrown  to  the  ground,  severely  bruised  and  very  nearly 
run  over.  He  tells  the  incident  with  interesting  details 
of  homely  treatment  with  warm  treacle  on  the  bruises, 
but  the  significant  sentence  is  one  quite  casually  set 
down — '  I  found  no  flutter  of  spirit,  but  the  same 
composure  as  if  I  had  been  sitting  in  my  study.'  It 
was  a  trifling  occasion,  and  perhaps  the  more  significant 

137 


Compensation  for  Circumstances 

for  that,  since  we  often  suffer  little  thorns  to  remain 
and  rankle  while  we  deal  bravely  with  the  big  ones. 
For  a  like  Christian  high-mindedness  amid  weightier 
trials  compare  this  sentence  from  Bradford's  History 
of  the  Puritan  Fathers.  After  describing  their  perils 
and  conflicts  by  sea  and  in  the  wilderness  of  New 
England,  the  writer  adds  in  his  quaint  spelling — '  They 
knew  they  were  pilgrimes  and  looked  not  much  on 
these  things,  but  lift  up  their  eyes  unto  the  heavens, 
their  dearest  countrie,  and  quieted  their  spirits.' 

How  can  this  serene  forgetfulness  of  troublous 
circumstances  which  is  so  sure  a  mark  of  grace  be 
gained  ?  The  other  side  of  the  text  offers  guidance. 
'  He  that  was  called,  being  free,  is  Christ's  bondservant." 
That  applies  as  widely  as  the  first,  for  if  everybody 
tastes  bondage  in  some  respects,  everybody  has 
liberty  in  other  parts  of  life.  Few  men  indeed  are 
slaves  all  round.  The  poor  man  is  often  rich  in  health, 
and  the  hard  worker  frequently  enjoys  a  certain 
independence.  Most  of  us  have  our  easy  circumstances 
as  well  as  our  stringent  ones.  Then  the  rule  is — 
where  you  are  most  free  '  use  not  your  freedom  for  an 
occasion  to  the  flesh/  but  count  yourselves  in  those 
matters  the  slaves  of  Jesus  Christ.  Let  not  assured 
health  promote  self-confidence,  and  if  you  have  riches 
hold  them  with  a  loose  hand,  and  if  you  have  leisure 
tremble  for    your   use   of  it.     The  whole   secret   of 

138 


Compensation  for  Circumstances 

spirituality  lies  near  this  point.  Talk  about  circum- 
stances touches  a  chief  difference  which  separates 
men.  There  are  those  who  depend  utterly  on  outward 
conditions  and  find  their  temper  and  their  usefulness 
decided  by  the  irritations  and  the  comforts  of  the  day  ; 
and  there  are  others  whose  whole  life  is  dictated  by  an 
authority  which  resides  in  the  depths  of  their  being. 
1  Genius,'  said  John  Foster,  ' is  that  which  can  kindle 
its  own  fire ' :  mediocrity,  we  may  add,  only  glows 
when  Circumstance  acts  the  housemaid.  There  is  no 
doubt  as  to  which  class  the  believer  should  be  found 
in.  All  who  hold  to  Christ  may  be  geniuses  in  the 
life  of  faith,  and  that  possibility  is  made  an  accom- 
plished fact  by  one  plain  and  only  method — by  taking 
up  the  cross.  Nothing  else  will  make  the  strong  and 
heavenly  temper.  Wesley  could  ignore  and  forgive 
the  rudeness  of  an  ignorant  man  because  he  had 
dedicated  his  free  powers  to  a  spiritual  undertaking 
which  taxed  all  his  attention :  the  New  England 
Puritans  were  striving  to  found  the  kingdom  of  God 
in  the  wilderness,  and  their  conflicts  with  savage 
Indians  formed  but  a  small  part  of  the  day's  work, 
not  to  be  brooded  upon.  He  who  values  the  pleasant 
things  of  life  lightly  for  Christ's  sake  will  find  that 
Christ  enables  him  to  hold  its  harder  circumstances 
very  lightly  when  they  come.  He  who  willingly  serves 
the  Eternal  shall  never  be  the  slave  of  the  transient. 

i39 


Compensation  for  Circumstances 

Circumstances  are  but  the  scaffolding  of  the  soul 
upon  which  the  feet  of  God's  workmen  rest  while  they 
build  and  adorn  character.  When  I  was  first  in 
Oxford,  I  hastened  to  see  St.  Mary's  Church,  where 
Wesley  and  Newman  preached  their  great  sermons. 
The  spire  was  covered  with  scaffolding  which  hid  it 
almost  completely,  so  that  only  a  scanty  hand's- 
breadth  of  the  stone  here  and  there  remained  visible. 
A  passer-by  expatiated  upon  this,  telling  me  that  it 
was  one  of  the  most  intricate  and  remarkable  pieces 
of  scaffolding  ever  erected  in  England,  and  giving  facts 
about  the  length  of  planking  and  the  cost.  Having 
come  to  see  the  church,  I  felt  only  disappointment 
and  no  interest  whatever  in  the  scaffolding.  A  year 
later  I  was  in  Oxford  again,  and  saw  the  spire  in  its 
comeliness  clear  against  the  sky,  for  the  workmen  had 
finished  their  task.  Thus  are  men  wrapped  round 
with  that  which,  though  necessary  for  their  final  beauty 
and  strength  of  heart,  in  this  present  time  hides  all 
the  grandeur  that  is  theirs.  But  it  will  not  last. 
Some  day  God  will  strike  the  hardships  and  the 
limitations  away,  and  in  the  glory  of  the  Great 
Emancipation  we  shall  regret  nothing  that  has  helped 
to  bring  us  into  the  likeness  of  Jesus  Christ. 


140 


XII 

ON  TRYING  AND  TRUSTING 


XII 
On  Trying  and  Trusting 

AN  ADDRESS 

THESE  are  homely  words  with  no  weight  of 
dignity,  yet  they  stand  for  the  supreme  activities 
of  the  human  spirit,  effort  and  desire.  Our  present 
question  is,  which  of  the  twain  counts  for  most  in  the 
experience  of  salvation  ? 

The  question  sounds  very  juvenile,  and,  indeed,  it 
naturally  belongs  to  the  earlier  stages  of  pilgrimage. 
As  the  years  pass,  men  either  find  the  answer  in  a 
surer  knowledge  of  the  divine  Spirit  and  so  rise 
above  the  question,  or  they  sink  below  it  through 
growing  indifference  to  moral  progress.  Yet  in  its 
time  the  inquiry  often  springs  from  a  sorely  troubled 
heart  and  distracted  mind,  and  it  is  profitable  to 
consider. 

Let  us  define  the  question  more  sharply  by  re- 
calling a  familiar  experience.  Here  is  one  who  after 
long  and  honest  endeavour  finds  himself  shamed  by 
the  recurrence  of  an  old  failing,  and  sick  at  heart 
because  of  the  hope  of  victory  again  deferred.  The 
besetting    temptation     has    surprised    him     in     an 

i43 


On  Trying  and  Trusting 

unguarded  moment,  or  worn  down  his  resistance  by 
long  pressure  through  hours  of  discouragement. 
What  shall  he  say  to  himself  to  revive  his  own 
spirit  ?  There  are  two  possible  suggestions :  '  I  must 
try  again  and  try  harder,'  or  '  I  must  find  the  secret 
of  a  greater  trust.'  Either  answer  is  difficult — the 
first  because  he  has  already  tried  with  his  utmost 
skill  and  decision,  and  the  second  because  trust  is 
one  of  those  states  like  sleep  and  health  and  love 
which  must  just  come  of  themselves.  '  It  droppeth 
as  the  gentle  rain  from  heaven,'  and  our  best  attempts 
at  trust  in  the  absence  of  the  bounteous  outpouring 
are  much  like  the  poor  work  of  a  watering-can  in 
place  of  a  summer  shower.  Yet  some  way  of  escape 
from  this  dilemma  there  must  be. 

The  natural  human  answer  which  comes  readily 
in  these  days  is,  *  Don't  worry,  but  try  again.'  We 
have  a  reverence  for  natural  human  answers,  because 
common  sense  never  leads  us  far  astray  in  vital 
matters.  No  doubt  there  will  be  great  wisdom  in 
this,  but  it  is  too  brusque.  Why  say  '  Don't  worry '  ? 
Worry  may  not  be  wise,  but  it  is  allowed  that  a  man 
may  reasonably  be  excused  for  worrying  over  a  loss 
of  money  or  time  or  health ;  and  is  it  not  at  least  as 
reasonable  to  worry  over  a  loss  of  temper,  or  honour, 
or  purity?  It  may  be  that  in  the  light  of  the  highest 
revelation  there  are  assurances  which  lay  to  rest  all 

144 


On  Trying  and  Trusting 

terrified  concern  about  one's  own  character  and 
destiny,  but  the  man  who  never  turns  his  face  toward 
that  light  has  no  ground  for  dismissing  such  anxieties. 
Without  exception  the  saints  have  '  worried '  about 
their  sins,  until  they  found  the  remedy. 

The  weakness  of  the  human  answer,  however,  lies 
chiefly  here,  in  that  the  man  has  tried  his  best  already, 
with  disappointing  results.  There  is  a  strange  sense 
of  fatality  in  dealing  with  a  besetting  sin.  It  recurs 
at  intervals  like  the  paroxysms  of  certain  diseases,  and 
the  will  becomes  paralysed  by  the  rhythm  of  defeat. 
At  last  the  sinner  reaches  the  stage  of  despair  and 
makes  his  confession,  '  I  can  try  no  more  until  I  am  a 
better  man.'  That  is  absolutely  true.  Effort  has 
proved  inadequate,  and  some  spiritual  force  must  be 
invoked  to  make  the  human  answer  practicable. 

Let  us  glance  at  two  small  incidents  which  convey 
a  hint  of  the  spiritual  possibilities. 

In  his  Short  Studies  on  Great  Subjects  James 
Anthony  Froude  tells  how  upon  one  occasion  he 
visited  a  gathering  of  some  religious  sect  in  the  west 
of  England.  It  was  an  experience  meeting,  and  the 
historian  listened  to  the  testimonies  which  were  borne. 
They  had  one  feature  in  common  :  all  the  speakers 
agreed  in  expressing  what  sounded  like  an  intense 
horror  of  '  good  works/  They  disclaimed  them,  and 
energetically  repudiated  all  intention  of  ever  trusting 

k  145 


On  Trying  and  Trusting 

to  them.  Finally  they  put  their  sentiment  beyond 
all  doubt  by  singing  a  hymn— one  which  still  lingers 
neglected  in  Sankey's  book. 

Nothing,  either  great  or  small- 
Nothing,  sinner,  no; 

Jesus  did  it,  did  it  all, 
Long,  long  ago. 

Weary,  working,  burdened  one, 

Wherefore  toil  you  so? 
Cease  your  doing ;  all  was  done 

Long,  long  ago. 

Till  to  Jesus'  work  you  cling 

By  a  simple  faith, 
'Doing'  is  a  deadly  thing — 

'Doing'  ends  in  death. 

Cast  your  deadly  'doing'  down — 

Down  at  Jesus'  feet ; 
Stand  in  Him,  in  Him  alone, 

Gloriously  complete. 

Froude  describes  himself  as  utterly  amazed  and 
mystified.  What  could  these  people  mean?  They 
were  all  respectable  and  upright :  they  would  go  out 
to  live  the  week's  life,  trading  honestly,  helping  others 
in  difficulty,  and  doing  an  abundance  of  those  same 
'  good  works '  which  they  spoke  so  slightingly  about 
on  the  Sunday.  Perhaps  the  language  was  rather 
puzzling  to  an  outsider,  but  we  may  note  that,  what- 
ever the  meaning  might  be,  it  showed  a  remarkable 

146 


On  Trying  and  Trusting 

freedom  from  the  despondent  anxiety  which  we  have 
been  considering. 

Another  tiny  picture  is  from  my  own  memories. 
When  about  eighteen  years  of  age  I  heard  that  noted 
American  preacher,  Dr.  A.  T.  Pierson,  and  had  an 
experience  very  like  Froude's.  His  text  was  our 
Lord's  saying,  'This  is  the  work  of  God,  that  ye 
believe  on  Him  whom  He  hath  sent.'  The  preacher 
said  very  little  beyond  the  words  of  his  text,  yet  it 
was  a  long  sermon,  for  he  reiterated  with  intense 
emphasis  his  message  that  the  Christian  has  nothing 
to  do  but  believe  in  Christ.  I  also  left  the  place 
puzzled  and  dissatisfied. 

Such  doctrine  is  fiercely  opposed  to  salvation  by 
works.  It  brushes  aside  roughly — perhaps  too 
roughly — our  ingenious  little  compromises  and  pays 
scant  respect  to  venerable  illustrations  of  faith  and 
works  as  being  '  like  the  two  oars  of  a  boat.'  It  takes 
no  pains  to  meet  the  love  of  personal  achievement  in 
our  proud  age.  But  all  this  may  well  be  pardoned  il 
in  the  strange  and  technical  language  there  lies  the 
secret  of  an  ineffable  heart's-ease  and  the  cure  for 
moral  failure. 

And  it  is  so.  The  substance  of  this  teaching 
declares  conduct  to  be  the  outcome  of  the  nature. 
Men  do  not  gather  grapes  of  thorns,  or  good  fruit 
from  a  corrupt  tree.     And  the  cleansing  of  the  nature 

K  2  147 


On  Trying  and  Trusting 

is  God's  work  quite  as  truly  as  the  pardoning  of  sin  is 
His  work.  Human  co-operation  is  required  in  both 
processes :  the  experience  of  pardon  does  not  come 
to  pass  without  penitential  prayer,  nor  the  experience 
of  cleansing  without  the  striving  of  active  repentance  ; 
but  in  both  alike  the  redeeming  Will  of  God  is  the 
sure,  effective  force.  The  healthy  growth  of  a  flower 
really  depends  upon  its  being  in  the  midst  of  suitable 
conditions;  for  while  in  a  lesser  sense  growth  also 
depends  upon  what  the  flower  does — that  is  to  say, 
on  its  true  performance  of  its  own  functions — yet 
that  right  functioning  will  take  place  naturally  and 
instinctively  if  the  flower  is  in  its  right  place.  A  sick 
man  may  aid  his  own  recovery  by  cheerful  confidence, 
but  it  is  mainly  the  doctor's  work  to  medicate  the 
disordered  nature.  We  are  more  liable  to  wander 
than  a  flower  and  more  responsible  for  our  conduct 
than  for  our  health,  yet  in  matters  of  character  our 
chief  duty  is  to  stay  in  our  right  place,  under  the 
mighty  hand  of  God,  or,  in  other  words,  to  trust 

The  whole  problem  and  its  solution  is  given  by 
St.  Paul  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  chapters  of  Romans. 
The  diagnosis  of  a  soul  arrested  by  moral  weakness 
is  put  with  such  masterly  power  in  the  seventh  chapter 
that  one  turns  to  the  conclusion  in  sanguine  hope  of 
a  solution.  At  first  the  hope  is  disappointed  by  the 
brief  and  vague  statement,  'Through   Jesus  Christ 

148 


On  Trying  and  Trusting 

our  Lord.  Instinctively  the  seeker  remonstrates, 
'Yes,  but  what  must  /do?'  Ah,  that  is  the  old 
question,  so  liable  to  mislead.  St.  Paul  has  a  deep 
design  in  the  very  structure  of  this  passage.  The 
seventh  chapter  is  the  most  egotistical  document  in 
his  epistles :  the  personal  pronouns  '  I '  and  '  me  ' 
occur  more  than  forty  times  in  eighteen  verses.  And 
the  outcome  is  failure :  '  ego '  comes  to  mean  utter 
helplessness.  The  key  only  changes,  and  the  advanc- 
ing march-music  of  victory  is  first  heard,  when  with 
a  stroke  of  the  pen  he  substitutes  for  that  impotent 
pronoun  the  Name  which  is  above  every  name. 

The  seventh  chapter  feels  to  the  reader  like  the 
straining  effort  of  launching  a  heavy  boat  from  a 
rough  beach.  It  is  a  dead  lift.  The  timbers  grate 
and  drag  on  the  shingle.  But  when  once  the  Name 
is  reached  the  boat  slips  into  the  buoyant  water  and 
moves  forward  on  a  strong  current  of  reasoning, 
helplessness  exchanged  for  power  and  awkwardness 
for  grace.  Let  us  follow  the  reasoning  for  a  few 
verses  and  watch  the  effect. 

'  There  is  therefore  now  no  condemnation  to  them 
that  are  in  Christ  Jesus.'  Keep  strictly  to  the  Revised 
Version,  for  the  Authorized  misleads  here.  The  verse 
simply  shows  the  believer  in  his  right  place,  resting 
on  the  mercy  of  God  after  his  act  of  faith.  It  does 
not  mean  that   the   man    is   not    sinful,  or   that  he 

149 


On  Trying  and  Trusting 

cannot  do  wrong,  or  that  he  is  not  to  blame  for  his 
misdeeds.  These  things  are  all  true,  yet  by  trusting 
Christ  the  man  has  put  himself  under  a  new  authority. 
1  The  law  of  sin  and  death '  has  given  place  to  '  the 
law  of  the  Spirit  of  life  in  Jesus  Christ/  God  regards 
the  aim  of  the  man's  heart,  and  since  he  aims  at 
Christ  he  shall  have  Him.  He  is  no  longer  in  the 
position  of  a  criminal  sentenced  to  death,  but  of  one 
morally  sick  in  the  hands  of  a  physician  who  can 
and  will  cure.  The  Spirit,  God's  tireless,  watchful 
Agent,  has  taken  up  the  case  never  to  abandon  it 
while  the  man  remains  a  believer.  But  the  sin  must 
go.  Even  in  the  seventh  chapter  St.  Paul  found 
that  grace  had  effected  a  certain  separation  between 
sin  and  his  own  will,  and  could  say, '  It  is  no  more 
I  that  do  it,  but  sin  which  dwelleth  in  me.'  Here 
that  separation  is  again  recognized  and  confirmed, 
for  we  read  that  God  has  'condemned  sin  in  the 
flesh/  The  death-sentence  which  rested  on  the  sinner 
is  now  restricted  to  the  sin  since  he  began  to  trust. 
Sin  is  expatriated  and  made  an  alien,  not  because 
it  has  changed  its  domicile,  but  because  that  domicile 
has  changed  owners.  Henceforward  the  responsi- 
bility of  casting  out  the  bad  tenant  is  accepted  by 
Christ,  and  the  work  shall  be  done. 

We  put  this  strongly,  for  in  our  present-day  doubt 
of  the  supernatural  it  often  goes  unrealized,  and  it 

150 


On  Trying  and  Trusting 

is  the  truth  that  the  anxious  soul  supremely  needs 
to  realize.  Sin  is  doomed,  and  it  shall  be  utterly 
destroyed  if  you  look  to  God.  'Shall  I  be  able 
to  conquer  it?'  says  the  anxious  one.  I  do  not 
know.  Personal  conquest  in  a  hand-to-hand  en- 
counter is  rather  an  ambitious  idea.  But  very 
certainly, '  the  God  of  peace  shall  bruise  Satan  under 
your  feet  shortly/  Perhaps  your  besetment  may  lose 
whatever  charm  it  has  had,  or  you  may  suddenly 
find  that  you  have  forgotten  it  in  the  joy  of  better 
things.  It  will  be  God's  victory,  not  yours,  and  when 
it  comes  you  will  call  it  deliverance  rather  than 
conquest.     But  it  will  come. 

What  now  is  the  place  of '  trying '  in  this  experi- 
ence? From  the  very  first  stages  trying  intensifies 
trust.  We  cannot  trust  God  except  as  we  know 
the  power  of  sin,  and  our  very  failures  are  useful 
in  teaching  us  that.  Penitence  involves  effort,  and 
failure  leads  on  to  faith.  So  trying  plays  no  un- 
important part.  Charles  Wesley  has  a  little  verse, 
rather  unpoetical  for  him,  but  very  compendious. 

O  may  the  least  omission  pain 

My  well-instructed  soul, 
And  drive  me  to  the  blood  again 

Which  makes  the  wounded  whole! 

That  cycle  of  experience — shortcoming,  penitence, 
pardon — is  the  process  by  which  the  spiritual  nature 

J5i 


On  Trying  and  Trusting 

grows,  and  it  is  continually  being  repeated  on  ever 
higher  levels.  Everything  that  softens  our  hearts 
toward  God  helps  the  work. 

Trying  is,  moreover,  an  instinctive  and  right  way 
of  expressing  trust.  A  necessary  part  of  the  spiritual 
work,  as  Jesus  showed  in  dealing  with  the  Gadarene 
demoniac,  is  to  enlist  the  human  will  on  the  side  of 
God.  He  will  do  this.  Let  no  man  think  that  since  his 
saving  is  supremely  God's  work,  he  himself  can  fold 
his  hands  and  wait  in  idleness.  The  believer  is  never 
allowed  to  do  that,  for  within  him  dwells  the  Holy 
Spirit,  touching  and  arousing  the  active  powers  of 
conscience,  will,  and  affection.  We  can  only  idle 
when  we  cease  to  believe. 

The  importance  of  this  doctrine  of  trust  is  seen 
when  a  man  confronts  the  great  world  of  outward 
need  and  opportunity.  There,  in  the  wide  service 
of  God  and  humanity,  is  scope  for  magnificent  en- 
deavour. The  last  reserves  of  ability  in  brain  and 
energy  in  will  are  called  into  action.  Commerce, 
statesmanship,  research,  exposition,  artistry,  philan- 
thropy, home-building,  child-training,  are  but  a  few 
departments  in  the  universal  workshop,  and  life  offers 
an  open  invitation  to  enterprise.  But  to  have  power 
without  the  man  must  have  peace  within,  the 
secure  and  established  peace  of  hope  and  purpose  on 
sure  foundations.     Of  those  foundations  the  Builder 

152 


On  Trying  and  Trusting 

and  Maker  is  God,  and  they  who  rightly  trust  in 
Him  know  that  their  striving  is  an  expression  of 
His  will,  and  can  neither  flag  nor  fail. 

I  should  like  to  sum  up  the  whole  situation  in 
words  used  by  a  friend  in  the  class-meeting.  They 
are  simple  words,  but  carefully  thought  out  and  rich 
in  wisdom.  '  If  I  want  to  succeed  in  business  I  must 
try  by  dint  of  punctuality  and  diligence  and  sagacity. 
If  I  would  lead  another  to  Christ,  I  must  not  only 
pray  for  him  but  try>  so  far  as  circumstances  permit, 
to  influence  and  reason  with  him.  But  sinfulness  in 
my  own  heart  is  another  matter.  In  regard  of  that 
I  can  but  pray  and  trust  that  by  His  own  power  God 
will  cast  that  out  while  I  busy  myself  about  His 
work.'  It  is  even  so.  No  one  shall  lack  guardian- 
ship in  the  hour  of  weakness,  or  fail  of  final  deliverance 
who  follows  that  way. 


iW 


XIII 
THE   LESSON   OF  A  COLLECTION 


XIII 
The  Lesson  of  a  Collection 

And  my  God  shall  fulfil  every  need  of  yours  according  to  His  riches  in 
glory  in  Christ  Jesus.— Phil,  iv.  19. 

THIS  familiar  verse  is  a  blank  cheque  upon  the 
bank  of  divine  power,  drawn  by  St.  Paul  in  favour 
of  the  Philippians  and  in  repayment  of  their  loving 
contribution  towards  his  relief.  We  will  deny  our- 
selves the  pleasure  of  dwelling  upon  the  story  behind 
the  verse  or  the  comfort  in  its  surface  meaning,  and 
gather  up  instead  its  implied  lesson  in  the  use  of 
money.  That  is  a  subject  which  affects  all  men  very 
closely.  Every  one  must  handle  money  more  or  less, 
and  find  therein  a  touchstone  of  character.  Not 
seldom  has  finance  become  the  grave  of  a  reputation 
otherwise  high.  One  man  grips  money  too  greedily, 
another  holds  it  too  carelessly,  while  some  feel  such 
an  incongruity  between  business  and  spiritual  religion 
that  they  never  attempt  to  combine  the  two.  Yet 
money  judges  all  things.  The  dream  of  the  artist  or 
the  reformer,  the  purpose  of  the  saint,  the  sweet  hopes 

157 


The  Lesson  of  a  Collection 

of  lovers  and  the  valiant  tenderness  of  young  parents 
must  all  face  the  rigid  and  humbling  test  of  paying 
their  way ;  and  individual  character  can  claim  no 
exemption.  And  as  the  believer  essays  to  pass  this 
ordeal,  he  will  find  that  the  only  secret  of  using  money 
rightly  is  to  give  it  the  right  meaning — the  meaning 
here  suggested  by  God's  Word. 

The  clue  to  St.  Paul's  philosophy  of  wealth  lies  in 
that  phrase  '  in  glory.'  How  shall  we  interpret  it  ? 
It  is  one  of  his  magic  words  which  yield  every  gift 
to  the  thoughtful  mind  except  a  precise  definition. 
There  is  so  much  breadth  in  the  expression  that 
almost  any  reasonable  interpretation  yields  a  true 
part  of  the  meaning.  It  might  signify  '  when  you 
get  to  heaven,'  but  then  the  cheque  would  be  post- 
dated, which  is  unlikely  ;  and  we  cannot  consent  to  im- 
poverish the  apostle's  language  by  treating  the  phrase 
merely  as  an  adverb — '  God  shall  gloriously  fulfil/  A 
simple  and  graphic  meaning  is  gained  by  taking  it  to 
describe  the  currency  in  which  payment  will  be  made. 
The  teller  at  the  bank  asks  about  every  cheque, 
*  How  will  you  take  it  ? '  and  we  reply  ■  In  gold,' 
unless  we  are  fortunate  in  the  size  of  our  cheque  and 
can  say  ' In  notes.'  In  like  manner,  when  young  King 
Solomon  presented  his  cheque  at  God's  bank  he  chose 
to  take  it  in  wisdom.  Here  the  Spirit  decides  that 
Lydia  and  the  jailor  and  the  other  contributors  shall 

iS8 


The  Lesson  of  a  Collection 

be  repaid  in  that  wonderful  New  Testament  currency 
called  'glory' — a  delightful,  bewildering,  heart- 
rejoicing  form  of  inward  wealth  which  meets  every 
need.  The  Philippians  gave  their  money  :  God  will 
give  them  glory.  A  sort  of  equation  is  established 
between  the  two,  and  in  the  new  light  of  this  promise 
we  find  that  what  has  so  often  been  called  'filthy 
lucre '  may  come  to  stand  for  the  wonder  of  the  Spirit's 
work. 

This  is  all-important,  for  the  value  of  money 
consists  in  what  it  stands  for.  A  country  is  not 
wealthy  because  its  exchequer  is  full,  but  because  coal 
and  iron  are  in  its  rocks,  timber  and  corn  on  its 
uplands,  rich  pasturage  and  cattle  in  its  meadows,  the 
world's  supplies  on  its  quays,  and  strength,  skill,  and 
industry  in  its  sons  and  daughters.  Money  only 
symbolizes  these  and  their  utilities.  Men  do  not  toil 
for  money,  but  for  bread  and  house-room,  for  books 
and  pictures,  for  social  position,  power  and  the  means 
of  travel — for  their  hearts'  desire.  Indeed  men  do  not 
even  steal  for  money.  One  of  the  greatest  railway 
frauds  was  perpetrated  by  a  poor  clerk  who  longed  to 
be  a  philanthropist,  and,  like  Robin  Hood,  could  only 
do  it  with  other  people's  possessions.  The  sums  this 
man  embezzled  he  gave  to  charity,  and  he  enjoyed 
presiding  at  the  annual  meetings  of  great  beneficent 
societies.     Finally  at  one  such  meeting  some  of  his 

i59 


The  Lesson  of  a  Collection 

own  directors  met  him  on  the  platform,  and  they 
pricked  his  bubble.  So  queer  a  case  sharply  empha- 
sizes the  truth  that  the  value  of  money  resides  in  its 
deep  meanings.  In  normal,  honest  life,  if  only  we 
knew  enough  we  could  re-write  the  money-column 
without  the  signs  of  pounds,  shillings,  and  pence. 
The  market  reports,  the  rise  and  fall  of  stocks,  the 
price  of  commodities  might  all  be  told  in  the  hopes 
and  fears,  the  love  and  desire,  the  happiness  and 
despair  of  fathers  and  wives — sometimes,  alas,  in  the 
hunger  of  children.  It  would  be  very  like  poetry,  now 
and  then  tragic,  but  often  glad  and  cheering.  No 
doubt  in  some  such  way  the  money-column  is  read  by 
the  all-seeing  God. 

Since  money  is,  then,  altogether  symbolical,  it  can, 
as  the  Philippians  found,  be  made  to  symbolize  the 
truest  devotion  to  God  and  the  wisest  loving-kindness 
to  men ;  and  this  is  so  not  only  when  it  is  given  to 
religious  collections,  but  when  it  passes  over  the 
counter  or  is  paid  in  wages.  The  fair  side  of  trade 
lies  in  this  susceptibility  of  money  to  a  noble 
meaning.  In  the  eighteenth  century,  Montesquieu, 
writing  about  England  from  his  French  standpoint, 
declared  that  the  most  promising  quality  of  our 
people  was  their  zeal  for  trade.  That  judgement 
needs  emphasizing  at  the  present  day.  Com- 
mercial enterprise  is  the  best  gift  to  a  nation  after 

1 60 


The  Lesson  of  a  Collection 

religion  itself.  Thereby  men  become  partners  in  the 
sustaining  and  shepherding  task  of  Him  who  openeth 
His  hand  and  satisfleth  the  desire  of  every  living 
thing.  The  God  of  history  grants  long  lives  to 
trading  nations,  while  those  who  readily  take  the 
sword  find  their  own  greatness  prematurely  laid  waste 
by  it.  In  other  words,  commerce  is  an  abiding 
strength  because  it  knits  the  friendship  of  mankind, 
and  military  prowess  is  a  vanishing  glory  because 
all  disintegrating  passions  are  suicidal.  Another 
Frenchman  would  fain  have  reversed  his  countryman's 
verdict  when  he  sneered  at  us  for  a  nation  of  shop- 
keepers, but  it  was  a  veiled  compliment.  How  much 
better  that  than  a  nation  of  swashbucklers !  May 
God  give  England  grace  never  to  acquire  even  uncon- 
sciously the  thirst  for  military  glory ! 

It  is  a  national  application  of  our  text  if  we  insist 
ever  more  fully  on  the  nobility  of  wholesome  getting 
and  spending.  The  sordid  side  of  trade  intrudes 
itself  only  too  often.  Competition  seems  almost  to 
compel  hard  measures  and  tricky  methods,  and  men 
who  are  least  scrupulous  can  bring  sore  pressure  to 
bear  on  those  who  would  keep  business  clean  and 
merciful.  All  the  more  is  it  worth  real  sacrifice  and 
stern  effort  to  raise  the  standard  of  commercial  life 
high,  and  there  is  no  finer  Christian  service  than  this. 
As  in  every  other  moral  difficulty,  strength  and 
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The  Lesson  oi  a  Collection 

guidance  come  from  clear  views  as  to  the  real  nature 
of  our  daily  occupation. 

To  make  a  happy  fireside  clime 

To  weans  and  wife, 
That's  the  true  pathos  and  sublime 

Of  human  life. 

The  highest  dignity  of  an  employer  Is  that  he  can 
enable  many  men  to  fulfil  that  simple  ideal.  He  does 
it  to  some  extent  whatever  his  disposition  may  be, 
but  he  can  only  do  it  to  the  full  extent  when  he  aims 
at  it,  rejoices  in  it,  and  in  hard  times  is  willing  to  bear 
severe  personal  loss  rather  than  curtail  such  far- 
reaching  usefulness.  Then  indeed  his  money  shall 
turn  to  glory.  There  are  profits  which  no  accountant 
can  tabulate,  and  there  will  be  a  stock-taking  for  all 
men  in  which  money  lost  in  mercy's  name  shall  prove 
a  rich  asset.  Likewise  the  highest  thing  in  the  lot  of 
every  workman  is  not  the  wages  he  commands,  but  the 
service  which  by  strength  and  training  he  can  render 
to  his  fellows,  and  as  he  exalts  that  motive  he  also 
shall  be  God's  capitalist. 

If   such   sanctification   ot    capital    and   labour   is 

possible  (and  God  help  us  if  it  be  not !),  every  man 

who  labours  to  bring  it  about  is  doing  spiritual  work 

of  the  abiding  kind.     There  is  no  gap  between  the 

sacred  and  the  secular.     Spirituality  is  never  found  at 

a  lonely  shrine  afar  from  common  human  affairs :  it 

is  always  embodied,  now  in  social  intercourse,  again 

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The  Lesson  of  a  Collection 

in  study  and  discovery,  and  most  constantly  in  daily 
industry.  Spirituality  is  a  matter  of  adverbs,  depend- 
ing little  on  what  we  are  doing  but  much  on  how  and 
why  we  do  it.  Indeed  the  virile  insight  of  Robert 
Louis  Stevenson  discerns  the  Will  of  God  most 
grandly  revealed  in  things  which  men  hastily  call 
secular. 

Those  He  approves  that  ply  the  trade, 
That  rock  the  child,  that  wed  the  maid, 
That  with  weak  virtues,  weaker  hands, 
Sow  gladness  in  the  peopled  lands, 
And  still  with  laughter,  song,  and  shout, 
Spin  the  great  wheel  of  earth  about. 

If  those  fine  lines  are  true,  the  trader  and  the  toiler 
are  home-missionaries  as  truly  as  the  preacher,  and 
their  work  wrought  in  righteousness  will  be  the 
effective  cause  of  that  peace  and  good-will  that  the 
angels  sang  about. 

'  Behold  your  calling,  brethren.'  There  is  room  and 
need  for  holy  enthusiasm.  Long  ago,  when  our  Saxon 
forefathers  came  to  Britain  first,  they  found  two  roads, 
one  beneath  their  feet  and  the  other  above  their 
heads.  The  first  was  the  Roman  road  from  London 
to  Tamworth  and  thence  by  different  branches  to 
Chester  and  Carnarvon  :  the  second  was  the  Milky 
Way.  The  heathen  Saxons,  however,  thought  of  the 
latter  as  the  path  by  which  their  god  Waetla  and  his 
sons  marched  to  war,  and  with  a  fine  touch  of  idealism 
l  2  163 


The  Lesson  of  a  Collection 

they  called  the  Roman  road  where  the  pack-horses 
were  soon  to  travel,  Watling  Street.  It  was  a  great 
inspiration  to  name  an  earthly  road  after  the  stars,  yet 
Keble  did  no  less  when  he  wrote  of  the  'trivial  round, 
the  common  task'  as  c  a  road  to  lead  us  daily  nearer 
God.'  That  idealism  will  give  the  merchant's  office 
the  power  of  the  sanctuary,  and  make  the  workman's 
task  a  means  of  grace. 

It  is  but  needful  to  add  a  final  word  about  the 
divine  repayment.  When  men  strive  to  put  into  their 
money  this  holy  meaning  of  sacrifice  and  offering, 
both  by  just  and  beneficent  use  and  by  the  more 
familiar  way  of  cheerful  giving,  God  always  repays. 
But  He  does  not  always  repay  in  cash.  Let  there  be 
no  mistake  about  that.  Lending  to  the  Lord  were  a 
sordid  business  indeed  if  we  got  only  money  back 
again.  The  man  who  gives  as  he  should  and  runs 
his  business  on  lines  of  mercy  and  help  will  as  a  rule 
have  a  lighter  pocket  as  well  as  a  lighter  heart.  But 
he  will  have  '  glory.' 

There  is  a  glory  of  character.  Like  the  rainbow  it 
cannot  be  analysed,  and  it  is  fashioned  by  God's  hand 
alone.  Men  may  doctor  their  own  characters  and 
cultivate  a  few  exiguous  virtues.  Prudence,  for 
example,  can  be  cultivated — but  imprudence  cannot, 
and  the  occasional  glorious  imprudence  has  far  more 

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The  Lesson  of  a  Collection 

to  do  with  the  making  of  a  saint.  It  was  very 
imprudent  of  Francis  to  leap  from  his  horse  and  kiss 
the  leper  whom  he  loathed  yet  wished  to  love,  and  the 
world  has  never  forgotten  that  unpremeditated  deed. 
Men  may  cultivate  courtesy  and  regularity  as  they  can 
make  artificial  flowers  of  perfect  correctness ;  but 
those  flowers  lack  the  fragrance  of  life,  and  the 
character  which  is  only  correct  is  deadly  dull.  The 
saint  can  be  nobly  discourteous  and  delightfully 
irregular.  Heavenly  impulses  are  the  Spirit's  secret. 
There  is  also  a  glory  of  experience.  It  never  goes 
with  the  closed  hand — not  always  with  the  full  purse. 
A  man's  banker  may  so  easily  hide  God  from  him. 
Indeed  most  ministers  can  testify  that  the  glory  ot 
faith  is  often  brightest  in  the  almshouses.  An  aged 
inmate  there  told  me  but  yesterday  how  that  when  the 
silence  of  her  little  chamber  grows  oppressive  she  is 
wont  to  draw  forward  a  chair  from  the  wall  for  the 
Lord  Jesus  to  sit  in,  and  then  she  can  talk  to  Him  till 
loneliness  is  forgotten.  For  her,  as  for  St.  Paul, 
poverty  had  opened  the  way  to  inward  content.  It  is 
easier  for  the  poor  to  put  the  right  meaning  into  their 
pence  than  for  the  rich  to  put  it  into  their  thousands, 
yet  all  may  do  it  by  dint  of  pains  and  love  of  prayer 
And  whoever  does  so,  grasping  nothing  greedily  for 
himself,  shall  find  the  need  of  his  hungry  heart 
supplied  by  inward  joy. 

165 


XIV 

CLOUDS 


XIV 

Clouds 

There  was  the  cloud  and  the  darkness^  yet  gave  it  light  by  night. 
— Exod.  xiv.  20. 

CLOUDS  are  things  with  a  bad  name.  In  out 
homely  speech '  the  cloudy  and  dark  day  '  means 
the  day  when  the  husband  is  out  of  work,  or  when  a 
debtor  has  gone  off  without  paying,  or  when  the  wife 
is  in  hospital  and  the  home  bereft  of  its  domestic 
providence,  or  when  a  dear  child  lies  sick  and  the 
doctor  looks  grave  for  many  hours.  These  are 
'clouds,'  and  they  mean  trouble,  confusion,  doubt, 
the  interruption  of  happiness  and  the  eclipse  of  hope. 
How  strange,  then,  that  God  should  choose  to  lead 
His  people  by  a  cloud,  wrapping  His  glorious 
presence  in  so  unfriendly  a  cloak !  Throughout 
Scripture  nearly  all  His  chosen  names  speak  of  light — 
'  the  Father  of  lights  with  whom  can  be  no  variation ' 
.  .  .  .  '  the  Sun  of  Righteousness  with  healing  in  His 
wings  ' .  .  .  .  '  who  coverest  Thyself  with  light  as  with 
a  garment '....'  dwelling  in  light  which  no  man 
can  approach  unto.'     Yet  here  God  has  changed  His 

169 


Clouds 

clothes  so  that  we  hardly  know  Him.  Nor  is  this 
our  ideal  of  Christian  experience.  The  life  of  faith 
should  mean  the  clearing  away  of  mystery  and 
deliverance  from  difficulty  and  perplexity.  'The 
path  of  the  just  is  as  a  shining  dawn  which  broadeneth 
out  unto  the  perfect  day.'  Yet  here  are  the  people  of 
God,  pilgrims  of  the  night,  treading  among  quick- 
sands  and  mysteries  and  hairbreadth  escapes,  and 
following  a  murky  cloud.  Aye,  and  they  complained 
and  grumbled  and  blasphemed  and  wished  they  had 
never  gene  on  pilgrimage  at  all,  and  at  last  they 
came  to  a  bad  end  and  their  carcases  fell  in  the 
wilderness,  all  because  they  did  not  know  the  mean- 
ing and  value  of  a  cloud. 

Yet  two  facts  are  told  us  about  this  cloud  which 
would  have  reconciled  them  entirely  and  changed 
their  bitterness  to  gratitude  if  only  they  had  given 
them  due  consideration.  The  cloud  came  between 
the  people  and  their  enemies.  It  bothered  the 
Egyptians  far  more  than  it  bothered  the  Israelites. 
It  stood  for  safety.  And  the  second  fact  is  that  it 
gave  light  by  night.  It  served  for  secure  guidance  at 
the  hour  of  need.  These  are  wonderful  assurances. 
Thus  early  in  the  Bible  they  anticipate  the  best 
results  of  that  long  discussion  of  suffering  which  runs 
through  the  sacred  literature.  The  problem  of  the 
cloud  is  Job's  problem  :  it  is  the  burden  of  innumer- 

170 


Clouds 

able  psalms,  of  the  letters  from  Paul  and  Peter  and 
James,  and  the  whole  story  of  the  divine  Man  of 
Sorrows  ;  nor  is  it  solved  till  the  redeemed  come  forth 
*  out  of  great  tribulation '  into  the  timeless  light  of 
God.  Does  the  man  of  faith  meet  more  trouble  than 
the  unbeliever,  that  his  holy  books  should  say  so 
much  about  it  ?  That  would  be  hard  to  decide. 
Many  troubles  are  common  to  all  men.  The  believer 
certainly  escapes  some  of  the  worst  which  are  caused 
by  flagrant  sin,  but  then  he  suffers  others  which  the 
unbeliever  knows  nothing  about.  But  however  the 
balance  may  incline,  one  supreme  difference  appears 
between  the  two  men — in  the  godly  life  there  is  no 
sorrow  without  a  beautiful  meaning,  and  no  cloud, 
however  dark,  which  will  not  become  a  torch  luminous 
with  blessed  encouragement  ere  the  journey  ends. 

Those  two  assurances  are  so  grandly  simple  and  so 
inviting  to  faith  that  every  Christian  soul  may  be 
trusted  to  use  them  freely  in  his  hours  of  trial.  We 
will  limit  ourselves  to  one  special  application.  It  has 
been  said  that  the  believer  has  clouds  which  other 
people  escape.  This  is  specially  true  of  the  fears  and 
cares  which  arise  from  an  awakened  and  tender 
conscience. 

The  Christian  life  begins  in  a  cloud  of  this  kind,  and 
the  shadow  often  returns  until  abounding  grace  chases 
it  away  for  ever.     David  describes  it  very  forcibly. 

171 


Clouds 

When  I  kept  silence,  my  bones  waxed  old 

Through  my  roaring  all  the  day  long  : 

For  day  and  night  Thy  hand  was  heavy  upon  me: 

My  moisture  was  changed  as  with  the  drought  of  summer. 

The  memory  of  sin  prostrated  him  and  put  him  in  a 
fever ;  and  recalling  the  immensity  and  cruelty  of 
David' s  sin,  we  cannot  wonder  at  it. 

Who  can  ever  forget  the  beclouded  pilgrim  in 
Bunyan's  great  story  as  he  wanders  round  the  City 
of  Destruction  wailing  over  his  burden?  He  tells 
them  at  home  about  it,  and  they  can  only  say,  '  Go  to 
bed.  Try  what  a  night's  rest  will  do. '  He  does  try, 
but  day  and  night  God's  hand  is  heavy  upon  him, 
and  his  family,  out  of  all  patience,  would  have  put 
him  in  a  madhouse  but  that  he  escapes  them  by 
going  on  pilgrimage.  That  is  the  ancient  cloud  of 
conviction  of  sin.  It  is  a  strange  woe.  All  things  in 
a  man's  life  may  be  fair  and  peaceful,  his  home  bright, 
his  children  loving,  his  business  sound — all  right 
except  his  own  sinful  heart,  and  because  that  is  not 
right  the  other  things  might  as  well  be  wrong  for  all 
the  joy  that  he  can  find  in  them. 

That  cloud  is  heavy  and  dark,  but  God  is  in  it. 
When  you  are  most  depressed  and  discouraged,  utterly 
out  of  friends  with  yourself  and  consciously  unholy, 
there  is  but  one  comfort,  one  salvation  for  the  reason 
— God  is  making  you  feel  thus  in  order  that  He  may 

172 


Clouds 

have  mercy  upon  you.  There  are  two  sides  to  the 
dealings  of  God  :  He  is  as  stern  as  He  is  tender — a 
Father  in  deepest  reality  and  not  as  some  human 
fathers.  David  offers  a  contrast  here,  for  nowhere 
else  did  that  great  king  fail  as  he  failed  in  his  father- 
hood. When  the  historian  tells  how  that  handsome 
younger  son  Adonijah  made  a  plot  against  the  suc- 
cession and  troubled  David's  very  death-bed,  he  adds 
this  significant  explanation,  '  His  father  had  not  dis- 
pleased him  at  any  time  in  saying,  Why  hast  thou 
done  so  ? '  God  is  not  like  David.  He  will  have  no 
spoiled  children,  and  He  fears  not  to  displease  them. 
Children  instinctively  trust  most  the  parent  who  can 
be  stern,  and  the  human  heart  can  only  find  rest  in  a 
God  who  makes  Himself  the  master.  In  his  twelfth 
chapter  Isaiah  pours  out  a  flood  of  praise  from  an 
overburdened  heart,  almost  incoherent  in  its  tumult- 
uous volume.  '  I  will  give  thanks  unto  Thee,  O  Lord, 
for  though  Thou  wast  angry  with  me,  Thine  anger 
is  turned  away  and  Thou  comfortest  me.'  Only  the 
sternness  could  make  the  comfort  so  real.  We  find 
the  rock  oi  assurance  when  we  can  say,  'This 
awful  God  is  ours.' 

It  would  be  a  very  foolish  and  dangerous  counsel, 
tending  towards  much  unwholesome  morbidity,  if  a 
preacher  persuaded  men  to  brood  upon  sin  and  culti- 
vate  conviction.     The   cloud  must  come  when  God 

i73 


Clouds 

sends  it.  But  it  is  a  sane  and  very  important  counsel 
to  say,  when  the  cloud  comes,  do  not  try  to  escape  it 
by  worldly  means.  Do  not  stifle  conscience.  There 
is  an  oft-quoted  passage  in  John  Stuart  Mill's  autobio- 
graphy where  he  describes  how  in  his  youth  he  came 
under  'what  the  Methodists  call  conviction  of  sin.' 
Feeling  the  cloud,  he  sought  to  escape  from  it.  He 
travelled  a  little,  went  into  society  and  read  cheerful 
books.  And  in  no  long  time  the  cloud  left  him — a 
poorer  man,  surely.  He  escaped  his  cloud  without 
asking  its  meaning,  and  through  all  his  life  he  knew 
not  the  faith  which  then  he  missed.  That  mistaken 
dealing  was  never  easier  for  all  classes  than  it  is 
to-day.  The  world  was  never  so  full  of  comparatively 
innocent  amusements  to  save  men  from  thought. 
The  cloud  comes  down  with  its  solemn  shadow  and 
the  hidden  boon  of  a  holy  Presence — and  we  go  to  the 
animated  pictures  to  shake  off  our  depression,  or  spend 
an  evening  cosily  with  a  good  novel.  After  that  the 
cloud  is  gone  indeed,  but  the  erring  and  impoverished 
heart  remains,  and  the  opportunity  for  a  new  life  has 
been  lost. 

Never  does  a  man  pass  through  the  cloud  patiently 
without  a  deepening  and  strengthening  of  his  nature 
for  after-days.  If  the  law  of  God  seems  to  lay  down 
restrictions  and  to  cramp  passion  and  prove  itself  irk- 
some in  the  merry  years  of  youth,  it  promises  a  rich 

i74 


Clouds 

repayment  for  all  that  is  foregone.  One  evening  in 
my  early  ministry  I  rode  home  from  a  service  while  a 
thunderstorm  gathered  behind  me.  The  way  lay  for 
five  miles  along  an  upland  road,  and  the  lightning 
spread  its  flickering  reflection  around  me  and  before. 
Anxious  to  reach  shelter  before  the  worst  of  the  storm 
came  up,  I  was  urging  my  bicycle  to  its  best  speed, 
when  a  longer  flash  than  usual  broke  the  darkness 
ahead,  and  there  in  my  path,  on  the  wrong  side  of  the 
road  and  showing  no  light,  stood  a  large  van  twenty 
yards  away.  A  moment  more  and  I  should  have 
crashed  into  it,  but  the  very  cloud  that  I  feared  and 
was  flying  from  '  gave  light  by  night '  to  show  the 
danger.  Even  so  in  life  do  the  awful,  restraining, 
baffling  commandments  serve  but  to  illuminate  the 
peril,  and  God  guides  us  by  our  fears. 

This  is  one  of  many  applications  to  which  our  text 
may  be  brought.  It  touches  all  the  turns  of  life  with 
meaning.  How  wearisome  life  would  be  without  its 
difficulties — how  shallow  without  its  sorrows !  I 
travelled  away  from  Liverpool  one  afternoon  with 
another  passenger  in  the  compartment.  He  gazed 
from  each  window  in  turn  with  the  liveliest  interest, 
and  at  length  remarked,  '  What  a  lovely  thing  it  is  to 
see  a  cloud  in  the  sky ! '  Then  he  explained  that 
he  had  just  landed  from  South  America,  where  for 
nine  months  in  the  year  they  have  the  unbroken  blue 

175 


Clouds 

above  until  the  eyes  ache  with  the  sight.  I  was  able 
to  assure  him  that  he  need  not  expect  to  suffer  from 
that  trouble  now  that  he  had  reached  our  northern 
clime.  Yet  imagination  may  help  us  to  understand 
his  point  of  view.  There  is  a  beauty  even  in  the 
cloud.  Remember  the  finest  sunset  that  you  ever 
watched,  when  the  heraldic  glory  of  crimson  and 
purple  and  gold  shone  out  and  the  skies  became  a 
stained-glass  window  of  eternity.  What  made  the 
unutterable  beauty  ?  The  sun  truly,  but  not  the  sun 
alone.  That  spectacle  was  wrought  in  clouds.  And 
if  sometimes  at  high  noon  we  are  discontented  that 
the  heavens  wear  a  grey  and  lowering  aspect,  we  need 
only  remind  ourselves  that  the  cloud  gives  light — by 
night 


XV 

MOODS   AND   FEELINGS 


XV 

Moods  and  Feelings 

AN   ADDRESS 

ANY  discussion  of  moods  and  feelings  must  seem 
wanton  and  unwholesome  foolishness  to  those 
practical  people  whose  fear  is  ever  before  our  eyes. 
What  would  Mr.  Wesley  in  real  life  or  Mrs.  Poyser  in 
story-land  say  to  it?  These  admirable  temperaments 
revealed  themselves  to  the  world  almost  entirely  in 
cognition  and  will,  the  element  ot  feeling — though 
strong  enough — doing  its  work  in  the  background  with 
reasonable  docility.  They  were  marvellously  balanced. 
Is  it  not  even  said  that  John  Wesley  could  take  sleep 
— the  delicate  fugitive — whenever  he  would  and  for 
exactly  so  long  as  he  wished  ?  A  power  like  that  is 
not  of  ourselves,  it  is  the  gift  of  God,  and  not  bestowed 
on  many  in  these  days.  Such  well-regulated  natures 
may  think  scorn  of  moods.  And  indeed  it  is  true 
that  many  sensitive  folk  brood  far  too  much  on  their 
feelings  and  grow  sadly  morbid.  Nor  are  they  all 
weaklings  who  do  so.  Surely  the  writer  of  Grace 
Abounding  lay  open  to  the  reproach — if  reproach  there 
be,  when  his  moods  drove  him  ever  to  God.     Allowing 

M  2  179 


Moods  and  Feelings 

the  danger,  let  us  nevertheless  recognize  that  to  not 

a  few  well-meaning  folk  moods  are  a  real  fact,  worth 

considering  because  they  so  greatly  influence  conduct 

and  work.     If  you  have  a  willing  horse  you   may  go 

fast  and  far ;  but  if  the  only  steed  available  shies  or 

jibs  or  plays  all  manner  of  tricks,  a  little  time  spent 

in  studying  how  to  meet  his  humours  and  get  the  best 

work  out  of  him  is  not  wasted.     Our  temperament  is 

the  only  steed  available :  we  may  not  change  horses 

on  life's  journey. 

Moodiness  is  not  altogether  a  disadvantage.     Man 

can  work  with  the  stolid  precision  of  a  machine  when 

his  soul  is  dead,  and  not  before.     Very  plaintively  the 

hymn  runs — 

I  am  never  at  one  stay, 
Changing  every  hour  I  am. 

That  is  partly  a  fact  to  thank  God  for.  Every  one  who 
has  taken  an  ocean  voyage  must  remember  the  relief 
which  his  eyes  found  in  the  constant  change  of  light 
and  colour — the  '  zones  of  sun  and  shadow '  through 
which  the  good  ship  'glimmers  away  to  the  lonely 
deep/  Without  this  the  endless  waves  and  the  arch- 
ing skies  would  be  unbearably  monotonous  ;  but  with 
it,  while  all  details  of  the  scenery  remain  the  same,  the 
effect  is  hourly  varied.  Even  so  the  play  of  mood  and 
feeling  brings  striking  charm  into  the  uneventful  life. 
The  daily  round  alters  little  for  many  of  us,  but  the 

180 


Moods  and  Feelings 

man  who  girds  himself  to  face  it  is  never  quite  the 
same.  To-day  he  bears  down  upon  his  task  strong  in 
the  spirit  of  joy  :  to-morrow  he  will  pass  the  hours 
thoughtfully,  finding  hidden  meanings  everywhere  ; 
another  day  his  mood  is  touched  with  gentle  sadness 
and  is  rich  in  sympathy.  So  he  feels  his  way  down 
the  keyboard  of  experience  even  to  the  very  lowest 
mood  of  utter  depression.  Never  a  psalm  but  fits  his 
tongue  at  one  time  or  another,  be  it  '  O  come  let  us 
sing  unto  the  Lord/  or  'O  God,  why  hast  Thou  cast  us 
off  for  ever  ? '  (  A  little  while  and  ye  behold  Me  no 
more ;  and  again  a  little  while  and  ye  shall  see  Me.' 
Life  is  like  April  weather,  made  up  of  these  little 
whiles  of  shine  and  shower. 

Now  all  this  change  has  a  practical  bearing  upon 
conduct.  It  means  that  love,  joy,  peace,  long-suffering 
gentleness,  goodness,  faith,  meekness,  temperance,  are 
very  much  easier  at  some  times  than  at  others.  They 
are  not  less  blessed  when  less  spontaneous ;  but  in 
general  the  blessedness  of  the  dark  moods  is  mainly 
for  ourselves.  There  is  no  discipline  in  life  finer  than 
the  effort  to  assert  our  will  against  the  despair  of  those 
enveloping  mists.  On  the  other  hand,  the  blessedness 
of  the  bright  moods  lies  chiefly  in  their  helpfulness  to 
our  influence  upon  others.  If  the  'best  portion  of  a 
good  man's  life '  is  really  'his  little  nameless  un- 
remembered  acts  of  kindness  and  of  love,'  we  may  be 

181 


Moods  and  Feelings 

sure  that  these  flow  most  effectively  from  the  rejoicing 
heart.  People  are  so  quick  to  see  when  kindness  is 
laboured  and  geniality  constrained.  We  cannot  have 
it  every  way.  The  problem  of  life  and  duty  is  solved 
for  many  of  us  when  we  have  learned  how  to  live 
always  in  a  good  temper. 

That  is  one  of  our  long  lessons.  Moods  may  be 
mastered  and  made  of  service  if  we  know  how  to  do 
it.  The  rule  is  to  give  them  their  right  value  and  no 
more.  Do  not  think  that  the  light  or  shadow  on  the 
wave  is  the  wave,  or  that  any  mood  is  altogether  an 
expression  of  your  character.  These  experiences 
show  rather  what  we  are  capable  of  than  what  we  are ; 
and  very  much  misery  may  come  from  attaching  the 
wrong  significance.  For  example,  there  is  the  mood 
of  lowest  depression,  marked  by  irritability,  languor, 
and  an  utter  failure  to  see  any  good  in  one's  self  or 
any  hope  in  life.  It  probably  has  a  physical  origin, 
and  is  akin  to  the  monkish  accidie.  Much  harm  may 
be  wrought  by  it.  The  novice  in  moods  feels  that  it 
is  surely  the  end  of  all  things :  life  is  to  be  like  that 
henceforward.  He  yields  himself  miserably  to  it 
abandoning  prayer  because  it  is  difficult,  absenting 
himself  like  poor  Thomas  from  the  place  of  fellowship 
and  the  risen  Christ.  He  is  filled  with  obstinate 
discouragement,  and  sees  most  plainly  that  he  is  a 
wretched  sinner — which  is  true  enough,  but  not  the 
only  truth  in  God's  world.     November  is  bad  enough 

182 


Moods  and  Feelings 

while  it  lasts,  but  June  is  quite  as  sound  a  fact.  The 
nightmare  rolls  off  with  the  morning.  The  sufferer 
has  to  make  acknowledgment  with  Jacob, '  Surely  the 
Lord  is  in  this  place  and  I  knew  it  not/  He  only 
regrets  that  he  did  not  play  the  man  of  faith  better. 
Such  moods  are  just  our  occasional  glimpses  of  hell, 
like  the  whiffs  of  brimstone  which  Bunyan's  pilgrim 
caught  at  times.  They  show  not  what  we  are,  but 
what  unfaithfulness  might  bring  us  to.  And  similarly 
the  bright,  ecstatic  moods  are  glimpses  of  heaven. 
They  also  contain  their  measure  of  illusion.  We  are 
not  so  good  as  they  make  us  think,  but  we  have 
ground  to  hope  that  their  sweet  prophecy  shall  be 
realized. 

This  amounts  to  saying  that  a  man's  self  is  greater 
than  his  moods  and  should  have  the  ruling  word  to 
say.  The  danger  in  talking  and  thinking  much  about 
temperament  is  that  we  may  come  to  believe  that 
temperament  fixes  destiny.  The  choleric  man  will 
say  that  his  temper  must  be  hasty  because  he  is  made 
so,  and  the  phlegmatic  man  may  resign  himself  to 
sloth,  feeling  it  useless  to  struggle.  Nothing  can  be 
more  disastrous  than  the  idea  that  certain  virtues  and 
graces  are  congenitally  impossible  to  us.  Tempera- 
ment is  a  fact,  and  it  fixes  our  handicap  ;  but  divine 
grace  and  will-power  are  facts  of  far  greater  moment, 
and  they  may  fix  our  destiny.  No  level  of  equanimity 
or  any  other  blessing  necessary  to  life  and  godliness  is 

183 


Moods  and  Feelings 

beyond  our  reach.  It  is  mischievous  to  think  our- 
selves different  from  others.  Much  has  been  said  in 
connexion  with  modern  education  about  the  im- 
portance of  the  teacher  adapting  his  methods  to  each 
individual  child.  Without  disputing  that  doctrine,  it 
may  be  pointed  out  that  the  old  education  had  one 
advantage  in  that  it  compelled  every  child  to  measure 
himself  by  a  common  standard  and  face  a  common 
duty,  and  encouraged  no  child  to  make  dangerous 
allowances  for  himself.  We  moody  people  need  that 
stern  discipline.  If  we  exempt  ourselves  from  some 
duty  on  account  of  an  interesting  peculiarity  in 
ourselves,  the  latter  generally  turns  out  to  be  just  a 
sordid  bit  of  the  old  Adam.  Let  us  try  to  be  always 
the  same  to  others,  to  reach  the  fair  level  of  patience, 
courtesy,  kindness  and  energy,  on  all  days  and  at  all 
hours.  It  will  not  be  easy,  and  may  very  well  mean  a 
fight  every  morning  which  calls  for  devout  strategy 
and  great  determination.  But  we  worship  the  Father 
of  lights  with  whom  is  no  variableness— He  has  no 
moods,  no  fits  of  anger,  no  caprices  of  feeling.  Our 
Help  is  ever  the  same.  Let  us  do  as  Bunyan  did — refer 
our  fitfulness  to  the  changeless  One,  till  His  quality 
enters  into  us.  This  probationary  life  is  just  a  struggle 
with  temperament  for  every  one,  until  the  wavering 
man  becomes  steadfast,  the  cold-hearted  man  loving, 
and  the  earthly-minded  man  spiritual. 

184 


XVI 
THE  ROUGH   SIDE  OF  LIFE 


XVI 

The  Rough  Side  of  Life 

A  REVERIE 

Count  it  all  joy,  my  brethren,  when  ye  fall  into  manifold  temptations  ; 
knowing  th  at  the  proof  of  your  faith  worketh  patience.  And  let  patience 
have  its  perfect  work,  that  ye  may  be  perfect  and  entire,  lacking  in 
nothing. — J  as.  i.  2-4. 

THE  writer  means  'trials/  Fine  old  puritan  that 
he  was,  St.  James  would  never  have  said  about 
those  evil  seductions  which  we  commonly  call  tempt- 
ations, '  Count  it  #// joy.'  These  things  are  '  our  fallen 
nature's  shame/  and  this  rugged,  pure  man  would  be 
the  first  to  feel  that  even  where  there  is  no  yielding 
and  no  personal  blame  there  is  nevertheless  moral 
humiliation  almost  amounting  to  the  touch  of  disgrace 
in  our  susceptibility  to  their  attraction. 

He  is  really  thinking  of  the  rough  side  of  life,  ot 
'sorrow  and  sickness,  poverty  and  pain/  of  great 
powers  marred  for  full  use  by  one  gift  withheld,  of 
some  physical  frailty  which  lets  a  man  down  on  the 
eve  of  attainment,  of  '  the  spurns  that  patient  merit 
of  the  unworthy  takes.'      And  all  the  rest.     Jewish 

.87 


The  Rough  Side  of  Life 

Christians  of  the  Dispersion,  gathered  in  a  little  secret 
club  in  the  ghetto  of  an  ancient  city,  some  of  them 
slaves  and  all  of  them  poor,  could  fill  in  the  dreary- 
catalogue. 

But  even  if  there  is  no  sin  in  the  trials  he  speaks  ot 
his  statement  is  none  the  less  amazing.  Professor 
Bradley,  in  his  Oxford  lectures  on  poetry,  reproves 
the  shallowness  which  sees  only  a  charming  sentiment 
in  the  hackneyed  lines — 

To  me  the  meanest  flower  that  blows  can  give 
Thoughts  that  do  often  lie  too  deep  for  tears. 

Wordsworth's  assertion  has  an  audacity  which  keeps 
it  fresh.  How  deep  such  thoughts  must  lie  !  How 
seldom  we  have  a  thought  even  worth  weeping  for,  not 
to  speak  of  deeper  thoughts  still !  What  revelations 
we  are  blind  to  in  the  daisies !  Yet  we  belittle  that 
astonishing  passage  into  a  pretty  saying  for  an 
album.  It  is  as  easy  and  far  more  disastrous  to 
belittle  this  text,  as  if  St.  James  had  merely  said, 
'  There's  a  silver  lining  to  every  cloud.'  Whereas  he 
says,  '  Count  it  all  joy.'  There  is  to  be  nothing  that 
is  not  joy — the  sick  anxiety,  the  pang  of  hunger,  the 
exhaustion  of  toil,  the  weary  waiting,  the  actual  pain 
of  trial.  The  believer  must  prefer  to  be  braced  rather 
than  comforted.  These  things  are  to  be  accounted 
/qy}  not  merely  evil  discounted  by  an  offset  of  promise. 

188 


The  Rough  Side  of  Life 

At  the  moment  of  strain  we  must  rejoice  in  the 
strain.  Is  even  Christian  faith  sufficient  for  these 
things  ?  Only  in  one  who  has  a  completely  spiritual 
interpretation  of  life  and  who  lies  prostrate  on  God's 
grace.  St.  James  with  his  ideal  dwarfs  our  best 
spiritual  attainments. 

•  •  •  • 

Why  should  life  have  a  rough  side — and  so  rough  a 
side  ?  If  God  is  God  He  could  have  left  it  out  We 
certainly  should. 

Ah  Love,  could  you  and  I  with  Him  conspire 
To  grasp  this  sorry  Scheme  of  Things  entire, 
Would  not  we  shatter  it  to  bits — and  then 
Re-mould  it  nearer  to  the  Heart's  Desire ! 

Even  the  body  one  wears  is  so  imperfect.  Many 
words  have  been  spent  on  the  wonder  of  Nature's 
work  in  the  human  frame,  and  not  unjustly,  for  there 
is  much  to  marvel  at.  Yet  the  thought  comes,  c  If  so 
much,  why  not  a  little  more — the  little  that  would 
turn  aside  untimely  disaster,  and  make  the  body  the 
tireless,  unbetraying  ally  of  the  spirit.'  An  old 
physician  remarked  in  the  Johnsonian  manner, 
1  Madam,  our  physical  organism  leaves  much  to  be 
desired.'  That  is  the  point  of  view  of  art.  Evolution 
is  a  rough-and-ready  process,  confessedly  turning 
things  out  just  good  enough  to  get  along  with.  It 
aims  at  no  ideal  perfection.     And  God  has  often  been 

189 


The  Rough  Side  of  Life 

content  to  work  by  evolution.  He  aims  at  no  ideal 
perfection — except  only  in  the  character  of  the  saints. 

We  must  just  set  the  one  against  the  other  and 
ask  whether  the  rough  efficiency  in  the  material 
sphere  helps  or  hinders  ideal  perfection  in  the 
spiritual  sphere.  St.  James  would  say  that  it  helps, 
wholly  and  solely.  There  are  men  but  partially 
equipped  for  life,  sweet-natured  blunderers  like  Seth 
Bede  in  the  great  story,  who  are  more  lovable  for 
their  mistakes  and  the  spirit  in  which  they  bear  them. 
They  climb  the  steep  ascent  with  better  speed  because 
they  halt  upon  the  thigh.  The  human  will  con- 
trolled by  the  heavenly  temper  has  an  immeasurable 
power  of  transfiguring  disadvantages.  We  grow  by 
overcoming  resistances  and  are  enriched  through 
our  inadequacies.  The  untroubled  and  self-sufficient 
man  alone  is  utterly  poor,  as  he  easily  gathers  his 
handfuls  of  dust. 

A  perfect  world  would  be  fatally  imperfect.  Earth 
is  no  *  desert  drear/  but  it  is  not  a  home.  Call  it  a 
school  and  you  are  nearer  the  truth.  And  we  expect 
some  roughness  of  accommodation  at  school.  To  be 
sure,  the  religious  weeklies  advertise  boarding-schools 
with  '  all  home  comforts/  but  that  is  an  extreme  of 
enthusiasm  in  language.  What  about  the  father's 
friendly  presence  and  the  mother's  sheltering  sym- 
pathy?    These  are  home  comforts,  and  school  does 

190 


The  Rough  Side  of  Life 

not  provide  them.  It  would  be  a  sorry  business  if 
the  children  grieved  to  come  home  at  the  term's  end. 
Neither  would  the  best  and  dearest  Father  have  our 
hearts  loth  to  turn  to  Him  because  earth  had  captured 
us :  therefore  there  are  no  home  comforts  for  pilgrims 
except  fellowship  one  with  another  and  the  hope  of 
glory.  If  only  we  would  learn  the  truth  that  there 
is  but  one  pleasure  for  the  believing  heart,  and  the 
rest  are  accidental — often  dangerous  ! 

Strength  of  spirit  is  the  essential  thing  to  be 
wrested  from  the  earthly  years.  St.  James  calls  it 
patience.  He  has  the  best  right  to  speak  of  it,  having 
inherited  the  quality  so  far  as  it  can  be  inherited  and 
having  cultivated  it  as  few  men  do.  We  take  it  that 
the  old  tradition  is  true  which  makes  him  a  son  of 
our  Lord's  foster-father,  Joseph  the  carpenter.  There 
are  the  strongest  resemblances  between  the  pen- 
pictures  of  James  and  the  word-pictures  of  Jesus. 
They  differ  as  literature  differs  from  speech  and  as 
the  outcome  of  separate  minds  must  always  differ ; 
yet  the  sententious  wisdom,  the  habit  of  accurate 
observation,  and  the  chaste  and  pithy  expression 
which  they  both  share  may  well  have  been  learned 
from  the  priestly  father  who  trained  their  childhood. 
And  Joseph  was  all  patience.  Think  of  him  in  middle 
life,  marrying  as  a  second  wife  the  sweet  maid  Mary 

191 


The  Rough  Side  of  Life 

in  hopes  of  a  quiet  and  settled  home,  yet  forthwith 
plunged  into  terrible  mysteries,  hair-breadth  escapes, 
heart-wringing  responsibilities.  He  was  hurried  from 
Nazareth  to  Bethlehem,  thence  to  Egypt,  and  back 
by  uncertain  stages  and  on  shortest  notice.  And  he 
never  once  complained.  In  all  those  wanderings  he 
spoke  no  word  that  needed  to  be  recorded.  His  duty 
was  too  desperate  for  talk,  and  he  feared  to  miss 
some  hint  of  the  unfolding  purpose  if  he  looked  at 
his  own  thoughts.  There  fell  upon  Joseph  the  habit 
of  waiting  for  the  Lord,  and  thus  Burne-Jones  has 
painted  him  into  that  great  picture  The  Star  of 
Bethlehem,  There  is  the  face  of  a  man  with  keen, 
inquiring  eyes,  who  sees  portents  in  unlikely  places, 
one  who  obeys  his  visions  and  holds  his  tongue, 
anxious  only  to  guard  his  treasures  without  a  moment's 
failure.  No  wonder  his  son  praises  silence  and  broods 
on  patience. 

It  is  the  supreme  lesson.  None  ever  become  the 
indispensable  benefactors  of  their  fellows  without 
learning  it.  However  faulty  the  world  may  be,  it 
teaches  patience :  the  only  question  is  whether  the 
drilling  is  not  too  severe.  Life  begins  to  inculcate  it 
at  the  cutting  of  the  first  tooth,  and  it  is  engraved 
beyond  erasure  on  the  faces  of  the  old  and  blind  in 
the  street.  Death  loves  with  exultant  hand  to  fix 
tnat  expression  on  the  countenance  that  will  change 

192 


The  Rough  Side  of  Life 

no  more.  He  that  is  patient  let  him  be  peaceful 
still. 

In  the  learning  of  other  things  there  are  many 
interruptions.  A  child  cannot  be  always  at  the  piano 
or  the  desk,  and  in  the  intervals  the  fingers  and  the 
memory  lose  something.  But  there  are  no  inter- 
ruptions here.  Fortitude  in  suffering  is  patience  ; 
moderation  in  joy  is  patience  ;  the  care  with  which 
the  skilled  master-craftsman  puts  in  finishing  touches 
and  the  despairing  earnestness  with  which  the  almost 
beaten  man  girds  for  a  last  effort  are  forms  of  patience. 
It  is  essential  to  every  virtue.  '  Love  is  not  love  that 
alters  when  it  alteration  finds ' :  courtesy  and  purity 
and  zeal  and  faith  are  gauged  by  their  power  to 
persist.  St.  James  says  well  and  truly, '  Let  patience 
have  her  perfect  work,  that  ye  may  be  perfect.' 

Of  course  this  quality  is  far  above  dull  resignation  ; 
it  is  no  pale  and  common  drudge.  Carry  patience 
into  high  things.  You  must  be  too  patient  ever  to 
show  depression.  James  took  his  patience  specially 
into  prayer  till  his  knees  became  as  callous  as  his 
spirit  was  sensitive.  Such  a  temper  underlies  all 
brilliant  accomplishment.  We  should  not  naturally 
turn  to  the  bright,  romantic  figure  of  Nelson  for  an 
example,  yet  here  is  a  passage  from  his  life.  Peace 
was  coming,  but  the  Government  thought  its  halting 
•steps  might  be  hastened  if  their  right-hand  man  was 
n  193 


The  Rough  Side  of  Life 

kept  to  the  front,  so  he  lay  off  the  south  coast. 
'  Lying  in  an  open  roadstead,  with  a  heavy  surf  pour- 
ing in  on  the  beach  many  days  in  the  week,  a  man 
with  one  arm  and  one  eye  could  not  easily  or  safely 
get  back  and  forth ;  and  being  in  a  small  frigate 
pitching  and  tugging  at  her  anchors,  he  was  con- 
stantly sea-sick,  so  much  so  that  he  wrote,  "  I  can 
scarcely  hold  up  my  head,"  afflicted  also  with  pain 
and  toothache.'  Add  that  at  the  same  time  he  was 
fretted  by  officialism  above,  that  he  was  watching  a 
brother-officer  die  of  terrible  wounds  and  following 
the  body  to  the  grave  in  such  grief  as  wrung  from 
j'vn  the  groan,  '  I  could  not  suffer  much  more  and 
xive.'  Finally  he  paid  for  the  funeral  out  of  his 
slender  means  and  bore  the  burden  of  the  dead  man's 
debts.  That  was  Nelson  taking  the  rough  side  of 
life,  and  it  was  a  spirit  disciplined  by  such  trial  that 
flashed  into  historic  brilliance  at  Copenhagen  and  the 
Nile  and  Trafalgar. 

The  background  of  all  lives  that  are  good  or  great, 
or  both  good  and  great,  is  patience — not  supine  sub- 
mission to  suffering,  but  tenacity  which  holds  its 
purpose  even  in  weakness,  and  persistence  which  keeps 
on  doing  a  little  when  it  cannot  do  much.  The 
importance  of  life  lies  in  its  time-test.  Heaven  is 
not  won  in  an  hour  of  inspiration,  but  'after  a  long 
time  the  lord  of  those  servants  cometh  and  reckoneth 

X94 


The  Rough  Side  of  Life 

with  them.'  Patience  with  God's  methods,  with 
crowding  difficulties,  with  the  unseen  future,  with 
ourselves  no  less  than  with  outside  things — patience 
which  gives  itself  whole-heartedly  to  present  duty, 
begins  again  very  often,  and]  seeks  to  make  the  pass- 
ing hour  perfect — patience  which  shows  in  a  strong 
tone  of  voice  when  a  whine  or  snarl  would  be  easier — 
all  this  is  a  homely  virtue.  But  when  perfect  there, 
we  are  perfect  everywhere,  lacking  nothing. 


N-  2  195 


XVII 
THE   PURITAN  AMONG  THE   FLOWERS 


XVII 
The    Puritan    among   the   Flowers 

A   REVERIE 

Let  the  brother  of  low  degree  glory  in  his  high  estate :  and  the  rich,  in 
that  he  is  made  low :  because  as  the  flower  of  the  grass  he  shall  pass 
aioay. — J  as.  i.  9,  10. 

SOMEWHERE  on  the  road  between  Hitchin  and 
Bedford  there  is  (or  used  to  be)  a  spot  on  which 
hallowed  memory  and  natural  beauty  confer  a  double 
consecration.  The  woodlands  closely  border  the 
highway,  and  the  traveller  can  turn  aside  and  pass 
quickly  through  a  screen  of  leafage  and  find  himself 
in  a  wide  dingle,  dim  with  soft  light  like  a  sanctuary. 
The  trees  bend  over  as  though  seeking  to  arch  in  the 
holy  ground,  but  they  only  cover  the  side-chapels  and 
leave  the  centre-aisle  roofed  by  the  blue  sky.  The 
wanderer  goes  '  wading  ankle-deep  in  flowers,'  for  the 
cowslips  gather  thickly  and  make  a  glorious  carpet. 
The  people  call  it  Bunyan's  Dell,  and  they  say  that  in 
the  time  of  his  persecution  the  gentle  dreamer  would 
call  his  little  congregation  together  there,  as  it  were 

199 


The  Puritan  among  the  Flowers 

*  secretly  in  a  pavilion  from  the  strife  of  tongues,'  and 
teach  them  the  arts  of  pilgrimage. 

I  describe  the  place  from  childish  memory,  and 
know  not  how  it  may  now  be  changed.  It  was  my 
first  hearing  of  Bunyan's  name,  and  frequent  readings 
of  the  Pilgrim's  Progress  in  after  years  were  pursued 
with  more  avidity  for  the  fact  that  I  first  knew  its 
author  among  the  cowslips.  Did  the  dell  suggest 
By-path  Meadow  to  him  ?  If  so,  no  wonder  Christian 
and  Hopeful  went  astray.  But  one  would  more 
naturally  regard  it  as  a  lawful  place  of  rest  for 
pilgrims,  ordained  and  adorned  to  this  use  by  the 
King  out  of  his  great  love. 

It  is  no  less  pleasant  to  watch  this  other  puritan, 
St.  James,  among  the  flowers.  Here  he  sits  by  the 
death-bed  of  one,  and  his  love  of  beauty  and  his 
tender  interest  appear  in  every  phrase.  *  The  flower 
thereof  falleth,'  and  you  see  the  drooping  of  that 
shapely  little  head  under  the  scorching  heat.  'The 
grace  of  the  fashion  of  it  perisheth,'  the  corolla  losing 
its  firm  and  dainty  shape  as  the  petals  begin  to 
shrivel.  Soon  the  bit  of  embodied  loveliness  has 
vanished,  like  a  good  thought  forgotten.  And  this 
strong  man  of  prayer  feels  the  tiny  tragedy,  though 
without  sorrow. 

For  there  is  much  difference  between  the  Old  and 
New  Testaments  in  their  mention  of  flowers.  Both  find 

200 


The  Puritan  among  the  Flowers 

them  an  emblem  of  the  transitory  elements  in  human 
life.  That  comparison  was  too  plain  to  be  missed,  a 
veritable  first  lesson  from  Nature's  picture-book. 
But  the  Testaments  differ  so  widely  as  to  what  are 
the  transient  elements,  and  therefore  the  whole  tone 
is  different.  In  the  older  volume  death  spares  nothing 
more  of  the  man  than  it  does  of  the  flower.  You 
open  a  book  upon  which  the  dust  has  gathered, 
and  there  falls  out  a  spray  of  scented  geranium 
which  leaves  a  faint  fragrance  on  the  page.  Thirty 
years  ago  it  was  put  there  to  be  preserved,  and  now 
it  brings  so  sharply  to  mind  that  long-ago  afternoon 
and  the  careful  fingers  of  her  whom  you  loved  in  the 
days  when  little  things  seemed  great,  such  as  the 
pressing  of  a  flower,  and  great  things  perhaps  seemed 
small,  such  as  motherly  love.  That  dearest  of  mothers, 
you  know  her  worth  better  now  !  Yet  it  is  but  a 
travesty  of  a  flower  that  comes  to  light,  and  its 
fragrance  is  like  an  unsubstantial  memory.  Is  there 
no  more  than  that  left  of  the  heart  that  once  beat  so 
warmly  for  you  ? 

The  older  writers  hardly  encourage  you  to  hope 
for  more.  '  We  all  do  fade  as  a  leaf,'  they  say.  '  In 
the  morning  it  is  green  and  groweth  up  :  but  in  the 
evening  it  is  cut  down,  dried  up,  and  withered.' 
Again  and  again  the  sad  refrain  comes.  '  The  wind 
I  asseth  over  it,  and  it  is  gone;  a\id  the  place  thereof 

201 


The  Puritan  among  the  Flowers 

shall  know  it  no  more.'  That  is  the  burden  of  old- 
time  sorrow. 

But  the  new  light  brings  new  hope.  Never  after 
the  coming  of  Jesus  do  His  scribes  talk  so  sadly. 
James  is  quite  possibly  the  first  of  them,  a  man  upon 
whom  the  tremendous  meaning  of  the  Evangel  has 
scarcely  dawned,  and  who  still  lives  mainly  in  the  Old 
Testament,  yet  he  says,  '  Let  the  rich  man  glory  in 
that  he  is  brought  low :  because  as  the  flower  of  the 
grass  he  shall  pass  away.'  The  tone  is  already 
changed,  and  the  pensive  sadness  turned  to  joy. 
1  Are  ye  not  much  better  than  they  ? '  is  the  new 
question,  and  henceforward  the  difference  between  the 
fate  of  men  and  flowers  will  be  chiefly  emphasized. 
4  If  God  so  clothe  the  grass  of  the  field,  which  to-day 
is  and  to-morrow  is  cast  into  the  oven,  shall  He  not 
much  more  clothe  you  ? '  And  St.  Peter  in  his 
dogmatic  way  hammers  the  Old  Testament  language 
till  it  rings  with  strange  assurance.  'All  flesh  is 
grass,'  he  quotes,  '  but  the  word  of  the  Lord  abideth 
for  ever,'  and  through  that  word  have  the  saints 
been  begotten  again,  not  of  corruptible  seed  but  of 
incorruptible. 

What  wrought  this  change  from  question  to  answer  ? 
It  is  the  more  wonderful  because  it  begins  when  the 
New  Testament  begins  and  long  before  apostolic 
minds  had  fairly  thrashed  their  harvest  and  garnered 

202 


The  Puritan  among  the  Flowers 

the  grain  of  doctrine.  Without  doubt  the  fact  of  the 
Resurrection  was  essential  to  this  leap  from  sadness 
into  joy,  yet  some  previous  influence  must  have 
prepared  the  disciples  for  their  apprehension  of  a  fact 
so  startling.  We  are  thrown  back  to  the  teaching  of 
Jesus  about  the  goodness  of  God,  in  which  birds  and 
lilies  played  so  large  a  part,  and  from  which  the 
disciples  learned  a  beautiful  theory  which  the  Resur- 
rection appearances  strengthened  into  a  faith. 

Jesus  taught  them  to  turn  the  argument  from  the 
flowers  completely  round.  They  are  very  beautiful, 
the  objects  in  part  of  His  infinite  thought,  but  ye  are 
more  than  they,  the  objects  of  His  whole  thought, 
and  He  will  not  care  for  the  less  and  neglect  the 
greater.  If  there  are  the  garnishings  of  the  feast 
there  must  be  a  feast.  Huxley's  admission  comes  to 
mind,  that  the  beauty  of  a  flower  seems  a  strong 
evidence  for  a  beneficent  Creator.  The  heart's 
reasoning  is  embodied  in  Whittier's  prayer — 

Thou  who  hast  made  my  home  of  life  so  pleasant, 
Leave  not  its  tenant  when  its  walls  decay. 

If  God  centres  His  love  on  us  and  shows  it  by  such 
exquisite  tokens,  He  will  not  forsake  the  work  of  His 
own  hands.  The  vast,  dim  afterwards  grows  bright 
with  the  hope.  It  will  be,  as  Jowett  of  Balliol  once 
said,  '  either  immortality  or  something  better.'     We 

203 


The  Puritan  among  the  Flowers 

are  sometimes  troubled  by  our  failure  to  conceive  the 
unimaginable  things  that  eye  hath  not  seen.  Let  not 
your  heart  be  troubled.  God  speaks  no  words  that 
cannot  be  understood  at  the  right  time,  and  as  the 
flowers  are  intelligible  syllables  of  His  love  now,  so 
that  after-life  shall  satisfy  our  simplest  desires. 

This  reasoning  is  other  than  scientific.  Science 
limits  itself,  and  rightly,  to  the  natural  explanation 
of  results.  It  is  not  as  specialists  but  as  men  that  we 
take  the  step  of  faith  and  talk  of  purposes. 


Why  does  St.  James  remind  the  rich  man  in 
particular  that  he  shall  pass  away,  when  the  poor 
man  must  do  so  equally  ?  It  is  not  due  to  his 
habitually  stern  view  of  the  rich,  for  this  is  a  calm 
appeal  on  the  facts.  But  the  rich  man  is  distin- 
guished by  his  clothing ;  indeed,  riches  are  all  a  kind 
of  clothing,  extraneous,  accidental,  and  transitory. 
*  We  brought  nothing  into  this  world,  and  it  is  certain 
we  can  carry  nothing  out.'  There  is  a  humorous  old 
story  about  a  fox  who  sought  to  get  into  a  vineyard 
guarded  with  palings,  and  after  starving  for  three 
days  found  himself  slender  enough  to  squeeze  in. 
But  when  he  had  eaten  his  fill  of  grapes  he  was  too 
stout  to  retire  by  the  only  route  open,  and  he  must 
needs  starve  himself  again  for  three  days  amid  the 

204 


The  Puritan  among  the  Flowers 

clusters  of  enticing  fruit  ere  he  escaped  as  empty  as 
when  he  entered.     So  it  is  with  worldly  gear. 

And  in  this  the  rich  man  closely  resembles  a 
flower,  for  the  flower  is  all  clothing.  Its  whole 
meaning  and  value  lies  in  its  transitory  beauty. 
When  that  is  over  it  has  passed  away.  There  is  no 
sadness  in  the  passing.  If  its  beauty  and  fragrance 
have  given  joy  to  a  child  or  cheered  a  sufferer  or 
earned  a  few  pence  for  a  hungry  girl  on  the  pavement, 
or  carried  a  sweet  message  from  one  lover  to  another, 
the  flower  has  served  its  turn  worthily.     Let  it  pass. 

Riches  are  like  that,  an  adornment  of  life.  If  they 
are  made  to  serve  their  turn  worthily,  it  is  well.  Men 
of  property  can  relieve  suffering,  find  leisure  for  public 
service,  foster  art  and  letters.  It  is  good  to  have 
some  stately  homes  in  England  so  that  all  homes 
may  be  made  more  beautiful.  Capital  in  the  right 
hands  is  like  sunshine  in  God's  hands,  drawing  out  the 
bursting  fruitfulness  of  all  that  is  best.  What  pictures 
of  the  genial  influence  of  riches  might  be  drawn,  and 
how  often  we  have  to  look  upon  the  blighting  influence 
of  wealth  misused  !     Yet  it  shall  pass. 

St.  James  is  not  condemning  riches  here,  but  he  has 
a  keen  eye  for  the  true  equality  of  faith.  '  The  man's 
the  gowd  for  a'  that.'  In  spiritual  religion  character 
and  service  alone  count,  and  in  the  task  of  manhood 
and  godliness  the  brother  of  low  degree  forgets  his 

205 


The  Puritan  among  the  Flowers 

handicap  and  the  rich  loses  his  worldly  advantages. 
He  is  a  poor  soul  who  measures  his  worth  by  his 
wealth  and  other  men's  worth  by  their  want  of  wealth. 

As  life  becomes  more  wholesome  we  continually 
learn  how  little  riches  affect  vital  matters.  There  is, 
of  course,  a  minimum.  *  Having  food  and  clothing  ' 
and  daily  accessories,  a  small  sum  in  reserve  against 
a  rainy  day  and  the  means  for  a  reasonable  holiday 
now  and  then,  need  we  ask  more  from  money?  Can 
it  indeed  give  much  more  that  is  worth  having  ?  We 
must  turn  to  a  greater  Magician  for  the  things  that 
touch  life  with  charm.  The  conventional  excuse  for 
lucrative  ambition  is  'the  good  that  money  can 
do.'  It  can  do  good,  but  its  possibilities  are  easily 
exaggerated.  St.  James's  programme,  'to  visit  the 
fatherless  and  widows  in  their  affliction,  and  to  keep 
himself  unspotted  from  the  world,'  is  singularly  In- 
expensive. Men  do  good  by  the  trouble  they  take 
rather  than  by  the  cheques  they  sign,  and  the 
children's  verse  about  '  little  acts  of  kindness '  con- 
tains the  whole  secret.  We  must  make  life  fine  in  its 
simplicity. 

All  the  rest  is  merely  clothing  which  shall  pass 
away  like  the  flowers.  Manhood  and  joy  are  the 
prizes  in  that  great  university  of  life  where  the  rich 
and  the  poor  meet  together,  and  the  Lord  is  the 
Maker  of  them  all.     We  must  blend  together  what  is 

206 


The  Puritan  among  the  Flowers 

useful  in  the  two  lines  of  thought  along  which  the 
puritan  apostle  has  set  us  drifting,  until  the  fair 
ambition  of  immortality  and  the  love  of  the  better 
country  absolve  us  from  bondage  to  the  seen.  We 
shall  then  be  skilled  in  the  heavenly  use  of  earthly 
things,  and  shall  find  abiding  treasure  hidden  in  them 
like  honey  in  the  flowers. 


*>7 


XVIII 
PRIVATION  AND  RESOLVE 


XVIII 

Privation    and    Resolve 

/  will  behave  myself  wisely  in  a  perfect  way: 

0  when  wilt  Thou  come  unto  me  ? 

1  will  walk  within  my  house  with  a  perfect  heart. 

Ps.  ci.  2. 

THIS  is  a  psalm  of  good  resolutions.  For  the 
most  part  its  language  suits  the  case  of  a  king 
or  magistrate  who  holds  the  power  to  rule  and  punish, 
and  feels  the  importance  of  seeking  wise  counsellors 
and  maintaining  his  dignity.  He  has  a  calm,  wise, 
and  sensible  mind.  Being  neither  kings  nor  magis- 
trates ourselves  we  are  apt  to  pass  such  a  psalm  by  as 
one  of  the  less  attractive  items  in  the  Jewish  hymn- 
book.  The  good  resolutions  of  a  superior  person  are 
not  exceedingly  interesting  to  others. 

But  the  psalm  is  illuminated  and  redeemed  into 
human  sympathy  by  one  great  cry,  'O  when  wilt 
Thou  come  unto  me?'  That  is  not  the  voice  of  a 
superior  person,  but  of  a  soul  athirst  for  God.  We 
can  in  no  wise  recover  the  history  of  the  psalm,  and 
are  therefore  free  to  interpret  it  as  may  be  most 
helpful.     Let  us  regard  this,  then,  as  the  effort  of  a 

O  2  211 


Privation  and  Resolve 

man  enduring  spiritual  privation  and  eclipse  to  seek 
the  Lord  if  haply  he  might  feel  after  Him  and  find 
Him.  In  the  hour  of  desolation  and  discontent  this 
worshipper  takes  refuge  in  a  strong  and  good  resolu- 
tion. Feeling  forsaken,  he  yet  determines  to  be  true 
and  faithful  until  God  returns  to  him  in  bright 
wonder. 

Spiritual  privation  or  religious  depression  is  a  state 
of  feeling  best  described  as  a  lack  of  the  conscious 
presence  of  God.  It  is  a  hard  trial  to  those  who  love 
His  appearing,  for  it  robs  them  of  their  mainstay. 
The  Christian  needs  to  be  normally  the  most  far- 
sighted  of  men,  since  he  deals  with  heavenly  powers 
and  with  purposes  which  extend  beyond  this  life. 
He  must  sow  a  little  seed,  very  often  in  other  people's 
fields,  and  go  his  way  not  waiting  for  the  harvest. 
His  best  accomplishment  will  probably  be  a  legacy  of 
a  sweet  influence  which  few  or  none  will  trouble  to 
trace  to  its  source.  Sic  nos  non  nobis  is  peculiarly  his 
motto.  He  is  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness  often- 
times. His  support  and  his  reward  are  in  the  secret 
friendship  of  God  and  the  whispers  of  immortal  hope. 
He  can  endure  only  'as  seeing  Him  who  is  invisible.' 
To  a  man  so  situated,  that  is  a  most  serious  hard- 
ship which  hinders  his  vision.  Religious  depression 
comes  upon  him  like  November  fog,  hiding  the  stars, 
aamping  the  spirits,  narrowing  the  outlook  to  a  mill- 


Privation  and  Resolve 

round  of  uninspiring  tasks.  The  preacher  in  such  a 
state  feels  God's  Word  unsuggestive  and  cannot  find  a 
text  in  all  the  Book.  To  all  sufferers  alike  it  is  a  time 
when  happy  thoughts  are  flown.  The  higher  exercises 
of  the  soul  grow  difficult :  the  heavens  seem  as  brass 
to  the  voice  of  prayer.  There  may  even  arise  within 
the  spirit  a  distaste  for  worship  and  the  Scriptures  and 
the  sanctuary.  It  is  much  if  the  victim  has  still 
grace  enough  to  cry,  '  O  when  wilt  Thou  come  unto 
me?' 

Most  of  us  have  suffered  occasionally  from  this 
trouble,  for  it  has  varied  causes.  It  often  marks  some 
stages  of  recovery  after  a  wilful  sin,  but  it  may  also 
come  quite  apart  from  definite  transgression.  Nowa- 
days, when  every  one  has  a  smattering  of  medical 
knowledge,  we  are  apt  to  refer  such  moods  altogether 
to  physical  disorder.  There  is  some  truth  in  that 
explanation,  but  it  does  not  end  the  matter.  The 
body  has  power  to  depress  the  soul,  but  the  soul  has 
probably  greater  power  to  uplift  the  body.  Indiges- 
tion and  east  winds  help  to  cause  depression  and 
irritability,  but  they  are  no  more  than  a  partial  excuse. 
A  poor-spirited  generation  would  use  these  ailments 
in  the  way  that  mediaeval  folk  used  the  popish  indul- 
gences, as  permissions  to  sin  ;  but  the  disciple  of  Jesus 
is  never  released  from  the  law  of  kindness,  nor  are 
religious  duties  cancelled  by  a  fit  of  dyspepsia.    There 

213 


Privation  and  Resolve 

is,  indeed,  comparatively  little  virtue  in  patience  and 
good  temper  when  all  is  well  within,  but  these  are 
heroic  things  when  they  cost  much  in  prayer  and  self- 
conquest. 

There  is  a  nobler  explanation,  more  worthy  of  man- 
hood. These  times  of  desertion,  whether  coming 
through  the  body  or  otherwise,  are  part  of  God's 
educative  discipline.  Among  devotional  writers  of 
the  old  school  this  experience  was  labelled  with  a 
technical  name,  'spiritual  privation.'  Thomas  a 
Kempis  has  a  chapter  '  On  the  Want  of  all  Comfort/ 
wherein  he  writes,  '  It  is  much,  and  very  much,  to  be 
able  to  want  both  human  and  divine  comfort,  and  for 
God's  honour  to  be  willing  cheerfully  to  endure 
banishment  of  heart,  and  to  seek  one's  self  in  nothing, 
nor  to  regard  one's  own  merit.'  Madame  Guyon  tells 
of  her  great  period  of  privation  when  the  joys  of 
religion  were  taken  from  her  for  nearly  seven  years. 
And  there  are  others.  For  the  most  part  these 
students  of  the  spiritual  life  draw  the  same  moral, 
that  the  gifts  are  withheld  lest  we  should  love  the  gifts 
instead  of  God.  That  means,  lest  we  should  revel  in 
feelings  and  forget  the  true  end  of  religion,  character 
born  of  faith.  True,  we  long  for  peace  and  spiritual 
comfort,  and  therefore  our  hearts  are  pained  till  they 
rest  in  God.  That  desire  starts  us  on  the  homeward 
journey,  and   the   Father   meets   us  with  His  gifts. 

214 


Privation  and  Resolve 

Then  f6rthwith  we  may  easily  fall  into  a  premature 
content.  Being  happy,  we  think  our  religion  perfect. 
Being  happy,  we  think  ourselves  sanctified  and 
unselfish.  Being  happy,  we  think  we  can  say,  '  Thy 
will  be  done.'  And  if  the  happiness  remained  un- 
broken the  pleasant  illusion  would  never  pass.  So 
God  withdraws  Himself  somewhat  from  our  percep- 
tion and  our  soul  begins  to  strive.  *  We  see  the 
ground  of  our  heart,'  as  Wesley  said,  and  learn  that 
we  are  still  wilful  and  imperfect.  That  need  not  dis- 
courage. The  boy  who  has  dreamed  of  castles  in  the 
air  must  not  lose  heart  when  he  finds  how  hard  it  is  to 
build  a  simple  home. 

Spiritual  privation  brings  us  to  our  senses  and  clears 
away  our  illusions,  especially  the  fond  illusion  that  the 
end  of  religion  is  peace  and  gladness  alone.  We  are 
like  children  sent  on  an  errand,  who  choose  a  fragrant 
bank  and  sit  there  till  the  slanting  afternoon  sunlight 
finds  them  still  playing  with  the  flowers,  their  errand 
forgotten.  It  is  good  to  be  like  a  child,  and  idleness 
is  not  always  unprofitable,  but  God  knows  when  to 
speak  the  stern  and  stirring  word.  It  is  not  His  will 
that  we  should  leave  this  world  with  nothing  but  a 
handful  of  flowery  memories  and  a  duty  unfulfilled,  so 
He  sometimes  leads  us  through  the  wilderness  where 
there  is  nothing  to  distract  our  attention.  Our  time 
often  divides  into  what  Swinburne  called 

215 


Privation  and  Resolve 

The  years  that  were  flowerful  and  fruitless, 
The  years  that  were  fruitful  and  dark : 

The  hopes  that  were  radiant  and  rootless, 
The  hopes  that  were  winged  to  their  mark. 

Whatever  causes  our  religious  depression,  the 
renewed  presence  of  God  will  cure  it,  and  while  we 
wait  for  that,  the  best  remedy  is  this  of  the  psalmist, 
a  strong  moral  resolution.  *  Though  I  feel  little 
fervour  or  response,  I  will  pray  :  though  my  sluggish 
heart  loves  no  one  eagerly,  I  will  deal  kindly, 
courteously,  and  generously  with  all :  though  I  cannot 
see  God,  I  will  worship  Him.  Whether  present  or 
absent  I  will  try  to  be  well-pleasing  to  Him,  and  I 
will  behave  myself  wisely  in  a  perfect  way.' 

The  unregarded  but  real  and  potent  heroisms  in  life 
lie  along  that  line.  Such  effort  braces  the  soul, 
exalts  the  character  into  true  refinement,  and  em- 
phasizes the  will.  We  are  responsible  for  the  will, 
not  the  feelings.  And  even  if  the  privation  arises 
from  bodily  disorder,  that  remedy  avails.  There  is 
no  better  tonic  for  the  physical  frame  than  a  strong 
purpose.  Who  can  forget  that  Scott  kept  to  his 
work  through  pain  that  made  him  roar  '  like  a  bull- 
calf  ?  It  probably  saved  him  from  chronic  invalidism, 
while  it  gave  us  The  Bride  of  Lammerntoor  and 
Rob  Roy.  Your  work  is  doubtless  more  vital  than 
novel-writing,  yet  you  will  do  well  to  keep  the  great 

216 


Privation  and  Resolve 

novelist's  temper  in  that  respect.  Assert  yourselves 
and  use  your  will  for  God.  It  is  not  godless  self- 
assertion,  nor  shall  it  prove  futile.  He  is  not  really 
'  in  the  stern  of  the  ship  asleep  on  a  pillow,'  but  even 
now  working  in  your  heart  to  prompt  the  brave 
words,  as  He  will  work  to  justify  them. 

We  dread  the  seasons  of  privation,  talking  of  good 
times  and  bad,  but  it  is  a  human  fashion  of  speech. 
They  are  all  God's  times  and  all  useful.  We  make 
great  mistakes  with  our  adjectives.  That  good 
mother  sees  her  son  attain  ^access.  He  wins  a 
college  prize  or  a  civic  honour,  or  he  gets  into 
parliament,  or  he  comes  back  from  foreign  service 
with  green  laurels.  Perhaps  there  are  crowds  to 
cheer  him.  Other  women  looking  on  break  the 
tenth  commandment  in  their  hearts,  coveting  a  son 
like  hers.  Her  cup  is  full :  it  is  her  good  time :  her 
love  never  shone  so  brightly  before.  No  ?  Ah, 
God  thinks  differently,  and  those  angels  who  were 
privileged  to  strengthen  that  woman  years  ago  when 
on  weary  nights  she  put  sleep  aside  and  came  near 
to  utter  exhaustion  for  the  sake  of  a  sick  child. 
They  listened  in  early  days  to  many  an  anxious 
prayer  over  that  boy's  wilfulness,  and  they  brought 
her  grace  to  correct  him  wisely.  Perhaps  they  know 
that  the  mother-love  shone  more  gloriously  in  the 
hour  of  agony  than  it  can  do  in  success. 

217 


Privation  and  Resolve 

Be  not  misled  by  circumstances  and  feelings  and 
the  appearance  of  things.  Our  good  times  are  those 
when  we  make  good  speed  towards  heaven,  and  we 
can  travel  by  night  as  well  as  day.  Says  Thomas 
a  Kempis  again,  '  What  great  matter  is  it  if  at  the 
coming  of  grace  thou  be  cheerful  and  devout?' 
Truly,  though  we  should  never  choose  them  and 
cannot  too  often  bear  them,  the  hard  times  bring 
their  boon.  Such  is  the  example  of  this  man,  with 
his  holy  resolution  in  his  day  of  privation.  If  we 
have  caught  the  lesson  we  can  henceforward  draw  a 
new  inspiration  from  the  Life  of  lives,  for  we  shall 
understand  better  how  it  came  to  pass  that  the  Son 
of  God  completed  His  availing  sacrifice  in  that  lonely 
moment  when  He  cried,  '  My  God,  my  God,  why 
hast  Thou  forsaken  Me?' 


»i8 


XIX 

A  SEEKER   OF  THE   BEAUTIFUL  LIFE 


XIX 
A  Seeker  of  the  Beautiful  Life 

A  STUDY  IN   MOTIVE 

/  love  them  that  love  me;  and  those  that  seek  me  diligently  shall 
find  me. — Pro  v.  viii.  17. 

Lesson :  Acts  viii.  26-40.     Philip  and  the  Ethiopian. 

MOTIVES  lie  beyond  our  making,  but  not 
altogether  beyond  our  choosing.  Small  we 
may  be,  like  Zaccheus,  yet  each  one  stands  at  times 
before  his  earthly  future  as  before  a  great  tree  with 
many  branches  of  purpose,  lower  and  higher,  short 
and  far-reaching ;  and  he  can  choose  which  he  will 
climb.  I  picked  up  an  unpretending  little  book 
whose  title,  Roads  to  the  Cross ',  suggests  the  same 
truth  under  another  figure.  All  the  motives  that  are 
natural  to  the  human  heart — self-preservation,  desire 
of  joy,  hope  of  reward,  fear  of  disaster,  gratitude,  love 
of  the  beautiful,  and  so  forth — are  capable  of  guiding 
a  man  to  Christ.  It  is  interesting  to  study  the  con- 
verts in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  with  a  view  to 
noting  the   varied   paths   by  which  they  converged 


A  Seeker  of  the  Beautiful  Life 

toward  Him  who  is  the  Life  indeed ;  and  the  study 
promises  advantage,  for  every  man  greatly  needs  to 
find  and  heartily  adopt  that  motive  which  fits  him 
best  and  enlists  the  full  strength  of  his  disposition. 
Perhaps  the  story  of  the  Ethiopian  stranger  illus- 
trates specially  the  most  wide-spread  religious  motive 
of  our  age. 

•  ••••• 

This  man  stands  out  eminently  as  a  seeker  after 
God.  As  such  he  inherits  many  promises.  A  whole 
range  of  assurances  and  exhortations  like  that  in 
our  text  belong  to  him,  and  on  his  side  are  the 
examples  of  nearly  all  those  folk  who  received 
Christ's  miracles.  Jesus  hardly  ever  offered  a  gift  of 
healing  before  it  was  asked  for.  He  desired  people 
to  seek,  simply  because  seeking  is  the  healthiest 
occupation  of  the  human  spirit. 

The  Ethiopian  excels  many  other  characters  in 
this  respect.  The  lame  man  at  the  temple-gate 
asked  no  more  than  an  alms,  and  the  jailer  at 
Philippi  certainly  was  not  thinking  at  all  about 
salvation  when  he  locked  up  his  prison  for  the  night. 
Those  cases  come  under  another  series  of  scrip- 
tures— '  I  am  inquired  of  by  them  that  asked  not 
for  Me  ;  I  am  found  by  them  that  sought  Me  not ' : 
'  The  Son  of  Man  is  come  to  seek  and  to  save  that 
which  was  lost*     Theirs  are  the  stories  of  the  lost 

22a 


A  Seeker  of  the  Beautiful  Life 

coin  and  the  lost  sheep.  There  are,  indeed,  two 
great  activities  in  every  instance  of  redemption,  that 
of  the  seeking  God  and  that  of  the  seeking  man  ; 
and  where  invincible  ignorance  or  ingrained  pre- 
judice or  extreme  weakness  handicaps  the  man,  the 
activity  of  God  becomes  the  vastly  more  striking 
feature. 

Yet  our  story  undoubtedly  shows  the  nobler  and 
the  normal  way.  We  depend  absolutely  on  divine 
grace  for  all  stirrings  of  good,  but  in  the  strength 
of  the  first  grace  we  should  become  seekers  after 
God,  as  earnest  in  our  quest  as  students  of  science 
are  in  theirs.  Nothing  can  be  more  ignoble  and  dis- 
honouring to  our  human  powers  or  more  unseemly 
and  irreverent  toward  God  than  the  common  habit 
of  drifting.  Our  placid  and  uneventful  modern  life 
disfavours  concern  about  the  inward  life.  Men  drift 
into  temptation,  and  with  equal  facility  they  drift  into 
moods  of  transient  penitence.  We  see  the  irony  of 
that  old  situation  when  Lord  Chesterfield,  the  least 
worthy  nobleman  of  his  generation,  kept  Johnson,  the 
classic  ornament  of  his  generation,  sitting  vainly  in 
hopes  of  an  interview ;  but  how  horrible  is  the  irony 
when  in  sheer  thoughtlessness  men  keep  the  God  of 
all  power  and  truth  and  grace  waiting  for  ever  in  the 
ante-room  of  their  lives !  If  the  zest  has  somewhat 
departed  from  modern  Christianity  it  is  because  so 

223 


A  Seeker  of  the  Beautiful  Life 

many  believers  yield  to  the  inertia  of  middle  life  and 
forget  their  fine  responsibility  of  seeking. 

Let  us  try  to  conjecture  what  made  this  man  a 
seeker.  As  minister  of  state  to  a  dusky  Abyssinian 
queen  he  lived  in  a  pagan  court  with  little  to  prompt 
the  higher  desires.  It  was  a  hard  and  dangerous 
situation.  More  uneasy  than  the  head  which  wears 
a  crown  is  that  head  which  comes  between  the 
crown  and  its  enemies — and  more  insecure  upon 
the  shoulders  which  belong  to  it.  This  man  must 
consistently  please  a  woman.  That  is  not  an  im- 
possible task  with  the  right  woman  :  if  she  is  mother 
or  wife  the  partisanship  of  love  will  bring  success. 
But  in  his  case  the  woman  was  a  queen,  and  the 
queen  a  barbarian.  His  position  would  depend  on 
splendid  force  of  character,  the  keenest  use  of  his 
wits,  constant  attention,  and — one  would  think — 
unscrupulous  fidelity.  Anxiety  would  be  his  familiar 
comrade.  Life's  brightest  joys  of  home  and  family 
were  denied  to  this  man.  How  should  he  com- 
pensate himself  for  the  wear  and  tear  of  nerve  and 
restore  his  haggard  face  save  by  indulgence  in  eat- 
ing and  drinking  and  the  hot  pursuit  of  wealth  and 
power?  Yet  a  cooling  spring  of  patience  flowed  in 
his  heart,  and  he  became  a  seeker  after  God  in  spite 
of  all.  He  found  his  way  to  the  purest  religion  on 
earth,  perhaps  even  became  a  proselyte  to  Judaism. 

224 


A  Seeker  of  the  Beautiful  Life 

He  planned  and  made  time  for  a  pilgrimage  to 
Jerusalem.  He  loved  his  Greek  copy  of  the  Old 
Testament.  He  sought  among  the  teachings  of  the 
wise  and  saintly  for  those  secrets  which  might  make 
him  a  happy  man. 

This  Ethiopian  stranger  had  outstripped  many 
whose  fortunes  in  knowledge  and  training  seem 
more  promising.  He  was  in  earnest  for  one  thing, 
and  that  means  much.  He  had  come  to  believe  that 
life  was  meant  to  be  a  far  more  beautiful  experience 
than  he  had  hitherto  found  it.  Let  us  say  that  in 
some  fashion  he  believed  in  the  ideal  life.  That  was  a 
very  great  thought  to  have  grasped,  and  it  offered  a 
mighty  motive. 

There  is  a  simple  charm  about  the  thought  of  the 
Life  Beautiful  which  needs  no  analysis.  Most  people 
know  the  comfort  of  being  well  dressed — dressed  in 
their  best.  It  brings  a  sensation  which  strengthens 
self-respect,  promotes  good  manners  and  forbearance, 
and  inoculates  us  with  good-will.  It  cannot  be 
always  enjoyed,  for  then  there  would  soon  be  no  best 
clothes  left.  And  there  is  an  opposite  misery  of 
being  ill-clad,  sometimes,  alas,  inevitable  to  many. 
But  no  good  reason  exists  that  the  inward  man 
should  not  always  be  dressed  in  his  best.  A  bad 
temper  is  like  a  torn  garment,  a  sullied  imagination 
like  a  bedraggled  skirt,  an  irresolute  will  like  shoes 
p  225 


A  Seeker  of  the  Beautiful  Life 

down  at  heels  and  dangerous.  The  spirit  so  clad 
knows  its  own  misery.  And  to  be  dressed  in  the 
dignity  of  rectitude,  in  the  fine  manners  of  honest 
good-will,  in  the  grace  of  helpfulness,  brings  its  own 
joy.  Nor  does  that  cost  anything  in  money — only  in 
pains  and  thought  and  prayer. 

Every  child  believes  instinctively  in  the  Life 
Beautiful.  To-morrow  is  always  to  bring  it.  And  a 
man  may  go  on  believing  in  it,  with  ideas  as  to  its 
details  which  ever  grow  wiser.  The  child  wants  sun- 
shine and  play ;  the  man  '  righteousness,  peace,  and 
joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost.'  Men  may  crave  for  this  who 
never  heard  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  for  it  is  a  matter  less 
of  head  knowledge  than  of  heart  quality.  Socrates 
was  a  believer  seeking  full  redemption  as  truly  as 
Wesley,  though  he  could  not  have  defined  it  so 
clearly.  The  seekers  form  a  brotherhood  everywhere 
and  in  all  times.  They  have  dreamed  that  life  may 
be  beautiful  beyond  telling,  satisfying,  and  sweeter 
than  honey  and  the  honeycomb.  They  believe  that 
purity  and  usefulness  are  attainable.  They  hold  that 
there  is  a  peace  that  passeth  all  understanding,  which 
is  possible  even  to  the  chancellor  of  a  barbarian 
queen's  exchequer.  And  this  man  was  with  them  in 
such  hopes. 

Like  him  in  the  parable,  the  Ethiopian  suspected  a 

treasure  hid  in  a  field.     He  knew  not  exactly  in  which 

226 


A  Seeker  of  the  Beautiful  Life 

field  or  in  which  corner,  but  he  would  try  all  fields, 
selling  all  that  he  had  and  turning  the  soil  over  till  it 
came  to  light.  And  you  will  agree  that  he  was  marvel- 
lously guided,  for  when  Philip  found  him  he  had  his 
hand  on  the  secret.  He  was  reading  in  Isaiah  that 
supreme  prophecy  which  was  the  inspiration  of  the 
apostolic  age  and  gave  to  the  first  theologians  their 
key  to  the  mystery  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  man  had 
discovered  the  treasure,  and  only  needed  Philip's  help 
to  open  the  box. 

So  much  for  earnest  seeking.  Do  we  believe  that 
life  may  be  all  beautiful  and  death  transfiguration  ? 
Or  have  we  begun  to  lose  faith  like  the  rest  ?  In 
these  days  men's  faculty  of  hope  grows  very  tired,  for 
the  world  is  no  longer  young,  and  there  be  many 
which  say,  '  Who  shall  show  us  any  good  ? '  The 
children  may  believe,  but  life  gets  harder  as  the 
years  wear  on.  Few  escape  the  stain  of  grave  sin, 
and  when  the  fall  into  the  miry  clay  has  taken  place 
they  question  if  it  is  worth  while  getting  up  again. 
They  can  no  longer  offer  an  unblemished  sacrifice. 
Nerves  are  jangled,  and  gentleness,  patience,  and  love 
are  so  difficult.  Home  peace  is  marred  by  ill-temper 
and  fretfulness :  selfishness  gradually  gains  the  mas- 
tery, and  life  is  all  on  the  seamy  side.  The  soul's 
garments  are  slovenly  and  frayed.  Old  dreams  fade, 
and  men  leave  off  hoping  for  much  and  aiming  high. 

p  2  227 


A  Seeker  of  the  Beautiful  Life 

Instead  of  a  treasure  found  there  is  a  talent  buried. 
Poor  pleasures  and  sordid  comforts  offer  some  refuge. 
The  real  trouble  with  England  is  that  so  many  cease 
to  believe  that  life  can  be  made  fair.  And  yet  every 
man  and  woman  in  England  once  learned  this  child's 
verse, '  I  love  them  that  love  me  ;  and  those  that  seek 
me  diligently  shall  find  me.' 

If  we  would  but  grasp  the  promise  with  confidence  ! 
1  Every  one  that  asketh  receiveth  ;  and  he  that  seeketh 
findeth;  and  to  him  that  knocketh  it  shall  be  opened.' 
The  Ethiopian  found  just  when  he  was  past  hope. 
He  had  gone  up  to  Jerusalem  to  worship.  Doubtless 
that  journey,  long  projected  and  arranged  for  with 
infinite  pains,  was  the  crowning  effort  of  his  search. 
He  sought  Jerusalem  as  the  very  fountain-head  of 
truth.  But  when  at  length  he  trod  the  temple-courts 
there  was  no  voice  nor  any  that  answered.  The  voice 
of  the  scribe  and  the  rabbi  sounded  like  a  dead 
language.  He  found  no  open  vision  in  the  schools  ot 
orthodoxy.  All  was  dry  as  a  museum.  So  he  turned 
away  with  a  disappointed  heart  and  went  down  to  the 
desert.  Surely  no  hope  could  lie  there.  He  was  near 
despair,  yet  he  read  the  old  words  as  he  went,  for — 
glory  be  to  God  ! — the  habit  of  seeking  once  acquired 
is  hard  to  kill.  And  now  appears  the  other  truth,  of 
the  seeking  Saviour — or  the  Saviour  who  does  not 
need  to  seek  because  He  has  never  lost.     God  had 

228 


A  Seeker  of  the  Beautiful  Life 

prepared  to  fulfil  His  promise.  In  the  desert,  the 
utterly  unlikely  place,  all  things  were  ready — the 
teacher,  the  living  voice,  the  Spirit  of  faith,  the  con- 
scious salvation,  even  the  baptismal  font  of  a  wayside 
pool. 

It  is  a  token  for  you  who  would  fain  seek.  Draw 
near  to  God,  make  some  new  surrender,  put  your  need 
into  a  prayer,  and  He  will  draw  near  to  you.  When 
perhaps  you  feel  least  strong  and  least  attractive, 
men  shall  see  in  you  the  beautiful  life  beginning;  and 
when  your  way  seems  most  barren  and  beset  with 
difficulties,  suddenly  '  the  wilderness  and  the  solitary 
place  shall  be  glad,  and  the  desert  shall  rejoice  and 
blossom  as  the  rose'  because  God  makes  you  know 
that  He  has  not  forgotten  either  His  pledges  or  His 
child 


**9 


XX 

AMBITION 


XX 

Ambition 

A  STUDY  IN   MOTIVE 

Give  me  also  this  potver,  that  upon  whomsoever  I  lay  my  hands,  he 
may  receive  the  Holy  Ghost. — ACTS  viii.  19. 

IT  is  impossible  to  feel  any  deep  interest  in  Simon 
the  discredited  sorcerer.  Such  traffickers  in 
magic  and  spells  alienate  ordinary  human  sympathy 
while  pretending  to  superhuman  powers.  Weak 
minds  fear  them  and  strong  minds  despise  them,  but 
no  one  loves  them.  We  need  spend  no  time  upon 
Simon  except  to  note  two  facts  in  the  story  which 
lead  up  to  our  subject — the  love  of  power  and  its 
place  in  religious  experience. 

The  first  fact  to  observe  is  the  road  by  which 
Simon  came,  or,  in  other  words,  the  motive  which 
inspired  him.  The  love  of  power  over  other  minds 
has  always  been  a  ruling  passion  with  professors  of 
the  black  arts — medicine  men,  devil-priests,  witches, 
Mother  Shiptons  and  the  like — and  Simon  was  absorbed 
in    the    pursuit.     When    hopelessly   out-rivalled    by 

233 


Ambition 

Philip  he  Relieved' — which  probably  means  that  he 
believed  only  in  the  superior  strength  of  Philip's 
familiar  spirit.  Seeing  that  the  hope  of  his  gains  was 
gone,  and  being  more  politic  than  the  charlatans  of 
Philippi,  Simon  gat  him  at  once  to  the  winning  side 
and  received  baptism.  In  due  course  he  made  this 
absurd  proposal  to  St.  Peter  for  the  purchase  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  as  though  the  Spirit's  might  could  be 
separated  from  the  presence  and  service  of  God  and 
given  to  a  man.  The  instinct  of  the  simplest  believer 
disrelishes  his  words  and  conduct,  and  we  need 
neither  the  apostle's  statement  nor  the  bulky 
traditions  of  the  Fathers  to  prove  that  his  heart  was 
not  right.  '  The  sacrifices  of  God  are  a  broken  spirit,' 
and  Simon's  spirit  was  as  proud  as  it  was  supple.  *  I 
am  no  more  worthy  .  .  .  make  me  as  one  of  thy  hired 
servants' — thus  the  penitents  have  ever  pleaded  ;  and 
Simon  asked  only  for  mastery.  He  was  not  a  convert, 
and  he  never  reached  the  Cross,  but  that  does  not 
prove  his  road  to  have  been  wholly  wrong. 

The  second  fact  to  notice  is  the  reception  he  met 
with.  St.  Peter  rebuked  him  sternly  and  unsparingly, 
but  did  not  close  the  door  of  hope.  We  should  be 
apt  to  say  that  personal  ambition  is  quite  a  wrong 
road  and  can  lead  no  man  to  Christ,  but  the  apostle 
would  not  say  so.  Peter  rebuked  Simon  not  so  much 
because  he  loved  power  as  because  his  self-centred 

234 


Ambition 

nature  was  entirely  unfit  to  be  entrusted  with  power. 
Let  him  go. 

And  as  Simon  goes  he  leaves  us  something  to  muse 
over.  This  love  of  power,  so  natural  to  some  minds 
and  so  incomprehensible  to  others,  what  is  its  place 
and  its  value  ?  It  is  the  characteristic  motive  of  the 
strong,  and  a  substantial  fact  to  be  reckoned  with  : 
what  answer  does  Christ's  religion  make  to  it  ? 

The  question  is  worth  asking.  To  treat  the  passion 
merely  as  an  evil  to  be  repressed  and  stamped  out  is 
quite  unsatisfactory.  A  thoughtful  woman  in  my 
hearing  passed  the  criticism  on  the  influence  of  the 
little  church  where  she  worshipped,  that  while  it 
gathered  in  the  feebler  and  more  docile  minds,  it 
altogether  failed  to  win  men  of  stronger  personality. 
That  is  a  common  result,  and  perhaps  only  partly  due 
to  the  Naaman-like  pride  of  the  strong  men  them- 
selves. We  need  earnest  thought  here  that  our 
ministry  be  not  blamed.  It  is  cruel  to  preach  the 
Lord's  claim  so  rigorously  that  the  weak  are  dis- 
heartened, but  it  is  an  even  more  disastrous  folly  to 
preach  a  religion  so  repressive,  so  prudential,  and  so 
tame  that  it  seems  to  an  active  and  enterprising  man 
smaller  than  his  own  mind.  The  end  of  faith  is  not 
merely  to  be  comforted  but  to  achieve. 

In  attempting  to  answer  the  question  it  must  be 
remembered  that  the  love  of  power  is  a  natural  gift, 

235 


Ambition 

and  therefore  neither  praiseworthy  nor  blameworthy 
at  first.  Its  presence  or  absence  affects  a  man's  moral 
station,  but  does  not  decide  his  moral  character.  We 
admire  the  build  of  an  athlete,  but  we  do  not  praise 
him  for  his  physical  proportions.  In  any  group  ot 
school-boys  one  will  be  active,  daring,  never  still,  a 
moving  spirit  in  mischief,  while  the  rest  appear  more 
or  less  unoriginal,  easy-going,  and  content  to  follow. 
No  fortune-teller  is  needed  to  identify  the  born 
leader  with  his  instinct  for  power.  Nature  shows  her- 
self merciful  in  that  she  turns  out  a  boy  of  that  kind 
only  occasionally :  otherwise  life  would  be  harder 
than  it  is.  Yet  all  admire  those  large-built  souls,  and 
we  feel  a  gentle  contempt  for  the  milder  class  even 
though  we  belong  to  it.  The  charm  of  a  page  ol 
history  centres  in  the  doings  of  the  strong,  and  the 
interest  of  the  daily  newspaper  depends  on  the  few 
men  whom  the  eyes  of  England  are  watching. 
Strength  is  a  glorious  heritage,  not  indeed  to  be 
commended  or  condemned  in  itself,  but  making  for 
great  opportunity.  It  does  not  solve  the  problem  of 
life,  but  it  renders  that  problem  breathlessly  interest- 
ing. Will  the  love  of  power  issue  in  a  Napoleon  or  a 
Cromwell,  an  empire-building  Caesar  or  a  murderous 
Macbeth  ?  Without  that  passion  the  race  would 
have  no  leaders.  Your  favourite  politician  is  doubt- 
less sincere  in  saying  that  he  desires  office  for  the  sake 

236 


Ambition 

of  carrying  out  his  excellent  policy  ;  nevertheless  he 
dearly  likes  the  box-seat,  and  would  not  face  the  toil 
and  care  did  he  lack  ambition.  The  fact  is  in  no  way 
dishonourable  :  our  judgement  simply  waits  suspended 
till  we  know  whether  he  drives  toward  the  public  good 
or  toward  national  disaster. 

Ambition  in  the  mind  may  be  consecrated  in  the 
highest  service  and  transfigured.  How  much  sheer 
love  of  power  went  to  make  St.  Paul  or  Francis 
of  Assisi  ?  Under  no  circumstances  could  such  men 
act  a  subordinate  part.  One  who  devotes  himself  to 
Christ  does  not  thereby  lose  the  instinct,  but  finds  it 
made  to  subserve  the  greater  glory  of  God.  The 
proudest  boy  I  knew  at  school  is  now  a  mission- 
ary of  the  doughtiest  kind.  On  the  other  hand,  when 
ambition  is  absent  there  remains  so  much  less  to 
consecrate.  And  if  some  one  says  that  by  way  of 
compensation  the  unambitious  soul  is  safer,  I  take 
leave  to  doubt  even  that  statement,  for  it  is  amon^ 
small  craft  that  most  shipwrecks  happen,  while  the 
big  liners  generally  come  safe  to  port. 

Upon  the  whole,  then,  the  love  of  power  often  acts 
as  a  contributory  motive  towards  good,  though  this 
result  is  not  inevitable.  The  first  disciples  were 
strongly  allured  by  it,  and  on  this  occasion  St.  Peter, 
who  had  done  his  share  of  boasting  and  brave 
dreaming  and  found  that  it  all  ended    in   a  clearer 

237 


Ambition 

relation  to  the  Saviour,  will  say  no  word  to  repress 
a  passion  which  may  be  greatly  blessed.  The  motive 
acts  for  good  differently  in  the  lowly  and  the 
ambitious. 

Docile  minds  need  to  acquire  ambition  and  learn 
how  to  utter  the  prayer,  '  Give  me  also  this  power.' 
The  Church  suffers  because  too  many  of  her  children 
conform  to  the  type  of  Philip  the  apostle.  According 
to  tradition  it  was  he  who  said,  *  Suffer  me  first  to  go 
and  bid  them  farewell  that  are  at  my  house/  and  who 
received  the  stern  answer,  '  No  man,  having  put  his 
hand  to  the  plough,  and  looking  back,  is  fit  for  the 
kingdom  of  God.'  More  certainly  it  was  Philip  who 
said,  'Two  hundred  pennyworth  of  bread  is  not 
sufficient.'  A  man  of  hesitation  and  flaccid  will,  quick 
to  see  the  difficulties,  dwelling  too  much  on  the 
strength  in  his  opponent's  case,  unable  to  make  up  his 
own  mind,  lacking  tone  and  needing  iron  in  his  blood, 
such  was  Philip  by  constitution.  Personalities  like 
his  are  scared  out  of  their  ambitions  by  want  of 
confidence :  they  reason  when  they  should  act,  and 
love  the  easy  neutral  attitude  ;  instead  of  lights  in  the 
world  they  become  mirrors  to  reflect  other  men's 
convictions, '  tossed  about  by  every  wind  of  doctrine ' 
as  another  figure  of  speech  puts  it.  Small  craft  are 
they,  and  in  much  danger.  Their  temptations  come 
along  the  line  of  self-contempt  and  self-indulgence  ; 

218 


Ambition 

and  if  self-importance  is  disagreeable,  self-contempt 
trips  folk  sooner  into  the  pit.  Well  might  Philip  cry, 
1  Lord,  show  us  the  Father,  and  it  sufficeth  us.'  It 
was  the  cry  of  self-preservation.  Strong-willed  men 
can  generally  make  a  success  in  this  world  without 
religion,  whatever  happens  to  them  hereafter,  but  men 
like  Philip  cannot  even  find  an  earthly  career  without 
the  redeeming  guidance  of  God. 

A  more  beautiful  instance  of  the  prayer  for  power 
was  when  Salome  asked  Jesus  that  her  two  sons 
might  sit '  the  one  on  Thy  right  hand  and  the  other  on 
Thy  left  in  Thy  Kingdom.'  Wise  mother,  who  knew 
the  value  of  a  high  destiny,  and  would  lift  her  sons  on 
the  wings  of  her  ambition !  She  would  save  them 
from  Philip's  peril.  And  most  tenderly  did  Jesus 
answer  her,  not  refusing  her  petition,  but  pointing  out 
the  pathway  of  service  which  leads  to  the  highest 
seats.  It  is  the  true  way.  Every  man  is  called  'to 
serve  the  present  age'  with  effective  goodness,  and  the 
desire  of  power,  conceived  under  a  sense  of  responsi- 
bility in  those  who  have  it  not  by  nature,  points  to 
Christ  as  the  Master  who  finds  a  place  and  a  career 
for  all  who  follow  Him. 

Every  man  has  some  things  to  learn  as  a  life-lesson, 
and  other  things  to  practise  which  need  little  or  no 
learning ;  and  with  different  men  different  virtues  fall 
into  these  two  classes.     The  docile  and  diffident,  for 

239 


Ambition 

example,  must  be  learning  confidence  and  vigour  all 
their  lives.  They  will  not  easily  become  leaders  of 
men  on  this  earth,  but  they  maybe  excellent  servants 
of  great  causes,  finding  a  duty  which  fills  the  years 
with  meaning  and  a  reward  which  crowns  life  with 
glory.  That  needs  power.  I  have  just  read  again  in 
Lockhart  the  epitaph  on  Tom  Purdie  the  poacher 
whom  'the  Sherra'  took  into  his  household.  'In 
grateful  remembrance  of  the  faithful  and  attached 
services  of  twenty-two  years,  and  in  sorrow  for  the 
loss  of  a  humble  but  sincere  friend,  this  stone  was 
erected  by  Sir  Walter  Scott,  Bart,  of  Abbotsford.' 
There  is  just  a  touch  of  seigneurial  condescension  in 
the  inscription,  and  the  '  Bart.'  sounds  rather  tre- 
mendous when  death  has  found  the  least  common 
denominator,  yet  Scott  loved  to  glorify  faithful 
servants.  But  there  will  be  no  condescension  in 
the  Master  towards  those  servants  concerning  whom 
He  has  promised — '  he  shall  gird  himself,  and  make 
them  sit  down  to  meat,  and  shall  come  and  serve 
them.'  Neither  will  there  be  any  need  for  the  second 
clause  about  the  loss  of  a  humble  friend. 

There  is  a  lesson  about  ambition  for  those  also  who 
have  it  abundantly  in  their  hearts.  Their  danger  is 
that  of  doing  without  God. 

On  one  occasion  the  Twelve  put  up  to  Christ  the 
very   proper-sounding   prayer,    '  Increase    our   faith.' 

240 


Ambition 

He  detected  the  ambition  behind  the  request,  and  met 
it  guardedly,  still  not  repressing  the  desire.  In  effect 
His  answer  was  as  follows.  '  You  shall  have  power — 
power  sufficient  to  move  mountains  and  trees — but 
not  for  yourselves.  Ye  are  servants,  and  your  care 
must  be  for  duty.  Like  the  tired  but  uncomplaining 
ploughman,  you  must  undertake  the  extra  task, 
and  in  the  end  remember  still  that  you  are  servants.' 
Jesus  always  met  ambition  with  the  lesson  of  service. 
In  all  the  kingdom  of  righteousness  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  irresponsible  power.  This  is  the  dividing- 
point  between  right  and  wrong  ambition.  If  a  man 
lusts  after  authority  for  the  satisfying  of  his  own  pride, 
he  is  an  enemy  to  Christ  and  to  order. 

No  one  understands  the  right  basis  of  power  better 
than  a  soldier.  The  centurion  said,  '  I  also  am  a  man 
under  authority,  having  soldiers  under  me.'  Accord- 
ing to  Canon  Carnegie  of  Birmingham  the  man  knew 
that  his  own  authority  was  effective  because  it  ex- 
pressed the  will  of  Caesar,  and  he  conceived  the  author- 
ity of  Jesus  invincible  because  He  stood  for  the  highest 
Will.  And  our  Lord's  eyes  flashed  with  pleasure  at 
the  comparison,  because  He  always  insisted,  '  I  came 
not  to  do  Mine  own  will.'  That  is  legitimate  power. 
St.  Paul  exhorted  those  who  bore  the  coveted  name 
of  '  master ' — '  Render  unto  your  servants  that  which 
is  just  and  equal,  knowing  that  your  Master  is  in 
Q  441 


Ambition 

heaven.'  Modern  life  has  no  greater  authority  than 
the  medical  man.  He  is  instantly  obeyed  because  he 
speaks  in  the  name  of  sound  and  vital  knowledge. 

Seek  power,  then.  The  world  is  thronged  with 
weaklings,  and  a  hundred  merciful  reforms  are  waiting 
for  mighty  men  to  carry  them  out.  But  do  not  play 
your  own  game  to  the  ruin  of  good  causes.  Prince 
Rupert  is  remembered  as  a  brilliant  adventurer  who 
dashed  to  pieces  a  whole  wing  of  the  parliamentary 
army  in  many  a  battle.  He  played  his  own  game, 
pursuing  flying  foemen  for  miles  and  then  returning 
to  find  the  day  lost  by  his  own  party.  He  was  an 
adventurer  but  not  a  soldier,  and  his  strength  was  put 
forth  in  vain.  Dr.  Martineau  states  the  lesson  in  his 
own  great  words.  '  Only  he  who  visibly  forgets  him- 
self and  becomes  the  organ  of  a  law  he  did  not  make 
and  cannot  alter,  whose  will  is  firm  because.it  is  not 
his  own  but  is  backed  by  a  divine  adamant  which 
cannot  yield,  can  win  a  loyal  and  glad  obedience.' 


*4* 


XXI 

•THE   LITTLE   TOUCH • 


Q» 


I 


XXI 

'The  Little  Touch' 

Concerning  our  affliction  which  befell  us  in  Asia. — 2  COR.  i.  8. 

T  is  clear  that  somewhere  between  his  two  letters 
to  Corinth,  and  well  on  in  his  middle  age,  St. 
Paul  looked  death  in  the  face.  A  great  peril  tried 
his  seasoned  nerves  and  daunted  his  brave  heart. 
The  language  points  to  bodily  illness,  but  other 
things  have  been  suggested,  such  as  a  dangerous  sea 
voyage,  a  malicious  plot,  or  the  fierce  riot  at  Ephesus 
engineered  by  Demetrius.  Perhaps  several  of  these 
evils  combined  together  and  led  up  to  the  almost 
fatal  illness,  so  making  these  months  the  sorest 
passage  of  the  apostle's  experience — his  Straits  of 
Magellan  through  which  he  struggled  into  the  Ocean 
of  Peace.  It  was  an  epoch-making  crisis  and 
changed  the  key  of  all  his  music  thenceforward.  He 
came  out  of  it  not  exactly  '  a  sadder  and  a  wiser 
man,'  for  that  is  a  very  worldly  sort  of  outcome,  but 
wiser  certainly,  and  endowed  with  the  diffusive  and 
abiding  joy  of  closer  fellowship  with  the  risen  Christ. 

It  is  good  that  the  details  are  unknown,  for  now 
245 


'The  Little  Touch $ 

every  man  can  take  home  the  example  and  lesson 
which  otherwise  we  might  limit  to  those  who  suffer 
after  the  similitude  of  St.  Paul.  The  form  of  the 
trouble  matters  nothing  :  its  place  in  life  is  every- 
thing. Something  corresponding  to  it  enters  every 
mature  experience.  There  is  a  remarkable  sameness 
in  human  lives  as  there  is  in  human  bodies.  Features 
and  complexion  vary,  but  the  skeleton  of  the  frame 
or  the  ground  plan  of  the  career  are  much  alike  in  all 
cases.  Every  one  is  born,  every  one  dies,  and  some- 
where along  the  earthly  course  every  one  can  point  to 

1  the  affliction  which  befell  us  in .'   Fill  that  blank 

with  the  place-name  that  means  most  to  you.  It  will 
be  a  sick-chamber  where  you  lay  and  learned  strange 
lessons,  or  a  graveside  where  you  buried  a  joy,  or  a 
railway  platform  where  you  bade  a  long  farewell,  or  a 
scene  in  the  world's  arena  where  you  met  a  bad 
defeat.  It  may  be  anything  in  the  nature  of  affliction. 
But  as  you  read  over  those  words,  '  When  I  became 
a  man  I  put  away  childish  things/  that  name  fixes 
their  date  in  your  life. 

Browning  has  an  inconspicuous  line  in  A  Gram- 
marian's  Funeral  upon  which  all  that  is  heroic  in  that 
poem  turns.  He  wastes  but  few  words  on  the  Gram- 
marian's early  years. 

juong  he  lived  nameless  :  how  should  spring  take  note 

Winter  would  follow? 

246 


'The  Little  Touch' 

It  was  a  careless,  easy,  pleasure-loving,  and  undistin- 
guished time. 

Till  lo,  the  little  touch,  and  youth  was  gone ! 

We  are  not  told  what  it  was.  Somewhere  in  the 
thirties  or  the  forties  it  came,  that  little  touch,  perhaps 
a  touch  of  rheumatism,  an  unwonted  flagging  of  the 
heart  after  exertion,  a  loss  of  money,  a  humiliating 
defeat,  a  disappointment  in  love  like  that  of  old 
Teufelsdrockh.  And  it  made  the  difference.  He 
*  left  play  for  work,  and  grappled  with  the  world,'  and 
the  price  of  the  passing  hour  rose  to  an  eternal  value 
in  his  soul's  market.  St.  Paul  needed  no  such  com- 
plete transformation  as  that,  yet  his  affliction  wrought 
in  the  same  direction  :  it  was  the  little  touch  which, 
like  the  angel's  touch  on  Jacob's  thigh,  at  once  crippled 
and  ennobled. 

He  indicates  the  effects  which  he  felt  and  the  results 
which  he  gained.  'We  ourselves  have  had  the 
answer  of  death  within  ourselves,  that  we  should  not 
trust  in  ourselves,  but  in  God  which  raiseth  the  dead.' 
The  blessing  may  be  outlined  in  three  phrases — a 
deepened  trust  in  God,  a  larger  measure  of  love,  and  a 
finer  qualification  for  service. 

I.  The  first  step  is  the  home-coming  of  the  heart, 
even  as  it  is  written,  'Return  unto  thy  rest,  O  my 
soul.'     Paul  had   looked    death  closely  between  the 

247 


'The  Little  Touch' 

eyes ;  he  had  felt  the  familiar  natural  foundations 
shake  beneath  his  feet,  and  he  must  hasten  to  the 
eternal  foundations  of  the  mercy  and  wisdom  which 
cannot  be  shaken.  That  compulsion  comes  to  all 
who  are  being  saved.  Youth  is  buoyant  and  confident, 
easy-going  because  it  takes  to-morrow  always  for 
granted,  and  rather  intolerant  of  weaker  folk  because 
it  feels  so  strong.  But  the  first  affliction  changes  all 
that.  Students  of  the  great  apostle  have  pointed 
out  the  manifest  change  which  crept  into  his  writings 
as  a  consequence.  Up  to  this  time  he  had  held  an 
unquestioning  belief  that  he  should  live  to  see  the 
glorious  return  of  Christ.  He  wrote  to  the  bereaved 
Thessalonians  about  their  dead  friends  gravely  and 
compassionately,  but  not  as  if  death  were  a  personal 
problem  for  himself.  '  Then  we  that  are  alive,  that 
are  left,  shall  together  with  them  be  caught  up  in  the 
clouds.'  And  to  the  Corinthians  he  wrote,  '  The  dead 
shall  be  raised  incorruptible,  and  we  shall  be  changed.' 
He  will  never  write  in  that  way  again.  Henceforward 
his  talk  will  be  of  the  frail  earthen  vessels  which  hold 
the  heavenly  treasure  and  of  the  dying  of  Jesus 
repeated  daily  in  his  body.  Ringed  round  with 
accident  as  he  is,  and  compacted  of  weakest  material, 
how  soon  the  silver  cord  may  be  loosed  !  At  any 
hour  God  may  bid  him  drop  the  splendid  plans  and 
leave  the  unfinished  task. 

248 


'The  Little  Touch' 

It  is  the  way  of  affliction  thus  ruthlessly  to  inter- 
rupt. I  remember  a  reading  competition  at  school  in 
which  each  competitor  had  to  mount  the  desk  in  turn 
and  read  two  or  three  fragments  of  prose  and  poetry, 
and  I  recall  my  sense  of  grievance  at  the  judge's 
abruptness.  It  seemed  that  no  sooner  was  the  young 
reader  warming  to  his  work,  perhaps  just  getting  into 
the  swing  of  Chatham's  eloquence  on  the  American 
War,  than  that  authoritative  voice  would  cut  across 
the  middle  of  a  sentence  with  a  short — '  Turn  to  page 
sixty-seven,'  or  'You  can  stand  down/  The  judge 
had  learned  what  he  wished  to  know  of  the  boy's 
quality.  God's  interest  is  not  so  much  in  the  well- 
rounded  sentence  or  the  splendid  plan  as  in  the  heart 
which  labours  at  these.  He  has  often  gained  His 
point  before  we  have  made  ours.  With  all  our 
wisdom  we  ever  need  a  capacity  for  blind  trust  and 
simple  obedience,  and  the  affliction  tests  us  in 
this. 

When  it  comes  we  surely  do  well  to  hasten  towards 
the  eternal  foundations.  Usually  we  temporize,  and 
cheer  ourselves  and  one  another  with  the  assurance, 
1  We  shall  get  better :  the  old  times  will  come  back.' 
Is  this  always  wise  ?  Would  it  not  be  truer  wisdom 
sometimes  to  look  forward,  facing  what  we  call  '  the 
Worst' — the  decline  and  fall  of  our  little  empire 
which  is  so  inevitable  sooner  or  later — and  so  see  our 

249 


'The  Little  Touch* 

way  to  the  unimagined  Best  which  lies  in  the  will  of 
'  God  which  raiseth  the  dead '  ?  This  transition  is 
the  essence  of  salvation.  From  the  natural  to  the 
spiritual,  from  the  fitful  to  the  permanent,  from  the 
shifting  sand  to  the  enduring  rock,  from  the  earthly 
Galilee  to  the  heavenly  Jerusalem,  a  man's  care  and 
desire  and  trust  must  pass.  And  nothing  less  potent 
than  the  touch  of  affliction  can  promote  that  passage 
and  urge  us  to  that  attainment.  An  old  poet's  words 
are  true  in  all  degrees  and  at  every  stage  of  ex- 
perience— 


The  soul's  dark  cottage,  battered  and  decayed, 

Lets  in  new  light  through  chinks  that  time  has  made ; 

Stronger  by  weakness,  wiser  men  become 

As  they  draw  near  to  their  eternal  home. 

Leaving  the  old,  both  worlds  at  once  they  view, 

Who  stand  upon  the  threshold  of  the  new. 


II.  The  second  step  follows  the  first  naturally. 
When  we  trust  more  we  love  more ;  and  the  love  of 
God  is  the  appointed  gladness  for  which  the  human 
spirit  was  created. 

It  is  really  necessary  to  insist  that  the  effect  of 
affliction  is  not  a  mournful  subject.  Youth  is  apt  to 
dismiss  with  a  moment's  hearty  commiseration  the 
man  of  disappointment,  the  man  of  the  heavy  handi- 
cap, who  must,  as  the  saying  is,  play  second   fiddle 

250 


'The  Little  Touch' 

for  the  future  and  go  softly  all  his  days.  Miss  Anne 
Bronte's  pathetic  lines — 

I  hoped  that  with  the  brave  and  strong 
My  portioned  task  should  lie — 

will  not  be  often  sung,  and  they  should  not  be,  for 
they  belong  absolutely  to  the  circumstances  in  which 
they  were  written.  Sanguine  and  eager  minds  hear 
them  as  a  passing-bell.  Yet  they  prove  that  there 
may  be  peace  in  a  passing-bell  and  faith's  victory  in 
the  extreme  of  weakness.  These  things  would  be 
mournful  if  the  vivid  lower  world  were  all — but  it  is 
so  far  from  being  all.  The  blows  of  misfortune  often 
break  the  cage  and  liberate  a  whole  bevy  of  the 
singing  birds  of  joy. 

This  is  true  for  the  present  hour.  How  often  the 
man  who  perforce  walks  much  on  the  shadowy  verge 
finds  a  delicate  charm  in  the  flickering  happinesses  of 
earth,  in  the  love  of  children,  in  the  works  of  the 
mind  and  the  things  of  nature,  which  he  never  found 
there  before  the  hint  of  loss  was  given.  Renan  once 
said  in  his  bright  French  way,  *  Of  what  do  you 
complain  ?  That  you  are  not  immortal  here  below  ? 
Of  all  the  flowers  (and  what  a  heaven  of  beauty  there 
is  in  a  flower  ! )  only  one  is  entirely  without  beauty, 
and  it  is  that  which  we  call  an  immortelle!  We  are 
often  happiest  in  the  twilight. 

251 


'The  Little  Touch' 

Much  more  is  this  true  of  the  present  as  the 
threshold  of  the  infinite,  hopeful  future.  The  old 
Methodists  sang  with  an  abandonment  of  enthusiasm 
about 

A  rest  where  pure  enjoyment  reigns 
And  Thou  art  loved  alone. 

We  cannot  make  ourselves  love  God  utterly,  but  He 
can  woo  and  win  our  hearts  into  that  fullness  of 
joy,  and  the  little  touch  is  a  master-touch  in  His 
tender  work.  Psychologists  have  found  a  natural  age 
for  conversion  :  there  is  a  natural  age  also  for  the 
second  blessing  of  perfect  love — when  the  shadows 
have  made  us  wise. 

III.  Finally,  when  we  love  best  we  serve  best.  St. 
Paul's  great  words  came  from  him  after  this  dark 
hour.  True,  the  chapter  on  Love  was  written  before 
it,  yet  that  wonderful  song  seems  to  me  to  need  one 
little  touch  to  bring  it  quite  home.  Is  it  not  just 
slightly  academical,  a  masterly  analysis  that  lacks  the 
poignancy  of  appeal  which  we  find  in  this  epistle  and 
his  Romans  ?  '  I  take  pleasure  in  weaknesses,  in 
injuries,  in  necessities,  in  persecutions,  in  distresses, 
for  Christ's  sake :  for  when  I  am  weak,  then  am  I 
strong.'  The  man  who  can  say  that  can  grip  other 
hearts.  St.  Paul  learned  it  in  Asia.  It  is  a  feature 
of  that  maturity  which  affliction  brings. 

252 


'The  Little  Touch ' 

A  recent  writer  on  the  question  of  women's  suffrage, 
contrasting  the  possibilities  of  a  career  for  men  and 
women  respectively,  dropped  the  remark — ■  A  man 
at  forty  finds  a  cause  to  live  for,  and  is  saved  by  it.' 
Whatever  might  be  its  value  in  the  writer's  argument, 
that  remark  is  true  in  itself.  In  youth  there  is  harm- 
less vanity  and  self-seeking  and  care  for  appearances. 
These  faults  are  innocent  enough  and  inevitable  at 
the  beginning,  but  they  hinder  and  limit  service,  and 
in  middle  life  under  the  touch  of  which  we  are  think- 
ing they  fall  from  the  way-worn  man.  In  the  hour  of 
deepened  feeling  personal  interest  dies  a  natural 
death  and  the  heart  grows  softer.  The  westering  sun 
shines  on  the  face,  and  '  its  first  sweet  evening  yellow ' 
brings  out  the  mystic  meaning  of  common  things. 
The  man  is  less  full  of  fight,  more  disposed  for  love 
and  the  healing  of  quarrels.  '  Blessed  are  the  peace- 
makers '  is  a  step  in  the  golden  ladder  which  it  takes 
time  to  reach.  It  may  be  said  that  the  Christian 
pilgrim  is  not  unlike  a  pedestrian  whose  journey  lies 
over  the  watershed  of  a  great  country.  For  half  the 
way  he  must  climb,  upheld  by  young  energy  and  high 
spirit.  And  the  rivers  are  flowing  towards  him.  He 
is  a  receiver  of  teaching  and  example  and  influence 
won  by  others  at  much  cost.  But  he  is  climbing 
hopemlly  towards  the  source  of  these.  By  and  by  he 
crosses  the  summit  and  begins   to   descend.      It  is 

253 


'The  Little  Touch' 

easier  going  now  and  the  views  are  wider.  The  end 
may  not  come  for  a  long  while,  but  it  can  sometimes  be 
foreseen.  And  the  rivers  are  flowing  from  him.  He 
is  a  giver  now,  and  because  the  night  cometh  he  must 
hasten  to  give  all  that  is  in  his  heart  before  the  hour 
when  no  man  can  work.  So  we  are  gently  lured  into 
the  larger  service. 

Perhaps  the  clue  to  the  mysterious  reason  of 
affliction  lies  most  often  in  its  effect  upon  service. 
The  ancient  explanation  put  forward  by  the  Greek 
poets  was  that  it  came  from  the  jealousy  of  the  gods, 
who  hated  to  see  a  man  too  much  uplifted.  Affliction 
was  apt,  therefore,  to  fall  in  the  moment  of  success  as 
a  whimsical  punishment  upon  the  hero ;  and  one 
Roman  general  after  a  victorious  campaign  went  in 
fear  of  this  counter-stroke  from  heaven  until  he  learned 
that  his  two  brave  sons  were  dead  and  so  felt  that  he 
knew  the  worst.  The  fact  that  affliction  and  prosper- 
ity often  come  close  together  is  very  likely  true,  but 
the  theory  by  which  they  tried  to  explain  that  fact  is 
superstitious  and  false.  When  I  read  that  a  modern 
statesman  in  the  very  crisis  of  success  is  called  away 
to  the  death-bed  of  a  beloved  child  and  afterwards  con- 
fesses that  in  spite  of  all  his  fame  he  was  at  that  time 
the  saddest  man  in  England,  I  do  not  think  about  the 
jealousy  of  the  gods.  I  remember  that  richer  word — 
1  Every  branch  in  Me  that  beareth  fruit,  He  purgeth  it 

254 


'The  Little  Touch' 

that  it  may  bring  forth  more  fruit.'  In  the  strength 
of  that  hope  we  shall  at  last  be  able  to  give  our  God 
the  lovely  name  that  St.  Paul  gives  Him  in  this 
chapter — '  the  Father  of  mercies  and  the  God  of  all 
comfort* 


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